Olympic gold medalist Mike Forgeron of Main-a-Dieu captured Olympic gold at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain as part of the eight-man skulls crew. Forgeron, along with teammates Darren Barber, Andrew Crosby, Robert Marland, Terence Paul, Derek Porter, Michael Rascher, Bruce Robertson, and John Wallace, won the 2,000 metre race in a time of 5:29.53, an Olympic record which lasted until the 2004 Games in Athens. They were a mere 0.13 seconds ahead of the Romanians, while Germany placed third.

Forgeron was also a gold medalist in a four-man boat at the 1994 Commonwealth Games, won silver at the 1993 Worl Student Games and captured silver and bronze at the Pan-American Games in 1991. He was also inducted to the Canadian Amateur Sport Hall of Fame in 1992.
When he arrived in Cape Breton after Barcelona, the graduate of the University of Western Ontario was greeted by a mile-long parade from the airport through Louisburg to Main-a-Dieu.