As the recently finished Olympics have shown - and the Paralympics without any doubt will continue to prove – Norway and Canada share a common love for winter sports. Canadian athlete Anne Heggtveit is a perfect example of the Norwegian-Canadian winter sports spirit. In 1960, at only 21 years, she became the first Canadian to win an Olympic gold medal in a skiing competition.
As the Heggtveit name leads us to suspect, Anne is of Norwegian descent. Her father Halvor, a cross-country champion, taught his daughter to ski at an early age. In 1954, at 15, Anne became the youngest skier ever to win the Holmenkollen Giant Slalom event in Norway. Only 17 years old she joined the Canadian team for the Winter Olympics in Cortina d’Ampezzo in Italy.
At the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley, California, Heggtveit won Canada’s first-ever Olympic skiing gold medal. Following this and many other impressive achievements in the slopes, Anne was made a member of the Order of Canada. She was included in Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame in 1960. She was voted into the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame in 1972 and in 1982 was among the first group inducted into the new Canadian Ski Hall of Fame. Heggtveit has a ski run named after her at the Camp Fortune Ski Resort just outside of Ottawa.
On 25 February 2010, as the Vancouver Olympics were about to come to an end, a celebration of the 50 years of Canada’s first Olympic gold medal in skiing ever took place at the Canadian ski museum. Heggtveit, gold medal winner in Slalom in the 1960 Olympics in Squaw Valley, was presented with gifts and a speech from the President of the Ski Museum, Ivo Krupka. As "Jackrabbit" Smith-Johannsen, Anne Heggtveit is yet another example of the tight bonds between our two countries, especially in the ski slopes! Congratulations, Anne!
For more information, please visit The Canadian Ski Museum's homepage