After years of skiing for pleasure, Nancy Greene Raine was given an opportunity to move into competitive skiing when the British Columbia Junior Ski Team was hit with injuries to many of its key athletes the same year that the Junior Canadian Championships were held in Greene’s hometown of Rossland, B.C. She showed up, an unknown, and came in third in the slalom and second in the downhill events.
During Nancy’s nine-year racing career, she skied all over North America, Europe, and South America. She represented Canada in the World Championships in France and Chile and competed in the Innsbruck and Grenoble Olympics. Despite an ankle injury just a month before the 1968 Olympics, Greene took home gold and silver medals in the giant slalom and slalom respectively. Her victory in the giant slalom by a margin of 2.68 seconds is still considered one of the most decisive wins in Olympic history. 1968 also saw her keep the World Cup title as she raced to 10 titles on the tour. In two years of World Cup racing, she had a total of 13 victories, the most by any Canadian, and still one of the top overall averages today. In light of her incredible successes, Nancy was awarded the Lou Marsh Trophy for athlete of the year in 1967 and 1968, she was named the B’nai B’rith woman of 1968. Nancy is also an Officer of the Order of Canada.
