Background

Olivia Bouffard-Nesbitt made her Olympic debut at Beijing 2022 where she competed in four events, highlighted by a ninth-place finish in the women’s 4x5km relay.

Bouffard-Nesbitt began competing internationally during the 2010-11 season on the Nor-Am Cup circuit. That season, she also competed for Team Quebec at the 2011 Canada Winter Games where she won a silver medal in the women’s relay.

Bouffard-Nesbitt competed at her first of two FIS U23 World Championships in 2014. She entered her first FIS World Cup event in February 2015, just ahead of her debut at the senior FIS World Championships. Bouffard-Nesbitt got a lot of World Cup experience in March 2016 as the World Cup Finals took place in Gatineau, Montreal, Quebec City, and Canmore and formed the Ski Tour Canada. She finished 44^th in the Ski Tour Canada standings.

She finished as high as second overall in the Nor-Am Cup standings in 2017-18.

Bouffard-Nesbitt is no stranger to adversity. She qualified to compete at the 2017 FIS World Championships but sustained a season-ending herniated disc in her neck just one week before. She had just come back from a stress fracture in her right foot a few months prior. In 2018 she had a very bad case of mononucleosis and missed the entire 2018-19 season. She decided to go to northern Saskatchewan to work with Spirit North, an organization founded by Olympic champion Beckie Scott to empower Indigenous youth through sport, to teach skiing to students in three Cree communities, an experience that turned out to be one of the best of her life.

After her Olympic debut, Bouffard-Nesbitt returned to World Cup racing in February 2022, nearly six years after she last competed on the elite circuit. She earned her first individual top 30 result in a freestyle sprint in December 2022 in Davos where she finished 25^th.

After an eight-year gap, Bouffard-Nesbitt returned to the FIS World Championships in 2023. She also competed at the worlds in 2025.

A Little More About Olivia

Getting into the Sport: Both parents were ski instructors, so she was never not on skis… As a baby was strapped to her dad’s back as he groomed their hometown trails… As a toddler was pulled along by rope on little alpine skis… At age 4 was given her own cross-country skis… Began competing in local races as a kid before starting to train seriously at age 15… Outside Interests: Continues to work with Spirit North when time allows… Coaches part time with the Canmore Nordic Ski Club… Odds and Ends: After Beckie Scott won Canada’s first Olympic cross-country skiing medal at Salt Lake City 2002 she cut out every newspaper article she would find and still has them stashed in her bedroom… Favourite quote: “Things turn out for people who make the best of the way things turn out.” – John Wooden…