Madeleine Williams has been the second-ranked female distance cross-country skier in Canada for the past two years. She has been a World Cup team member in 2008 and 2009, the national championships silver medalist in 2009, overall Nor-Am Champion 2007 and 2009, national senior team member from 2004 to 2007 and world junior championships and junior national team member in 2001, 2002 and 2003.

In 2009, she graduated from Athabasca University with a Bachelor of Arts degree.

Her passion for skiing began at a very early age, but she says she started racing when she was 12, following in her brother's footsteps. After that, there was no looking back. "My first season racing I was successful and all other pursuits suddenly came second to skiing."

She turned to AU for her education when she realized after completing courses at the University of Calgary that "I was never going to finish a degree there while skiing was my priority. (At AU) I was able to make my schooling fit around my skiing because I was unwilling to make skiing fit into school. There isn't anywhere else that I know of the offers that kind of flexibility."

She also selected AU because "I knew that I would get a quality education there." As her mother is a professor at AU, some inside knowledge was provided.

With her degree under her belt, her focus returned to skiing - specifically the goal of competing in Vancouver 2010. Although she was on senior national and World Cup teams since 2003, she still had to qualify at trials races in December to represent Canada. She qualified in the 30km classic Olympic trials race and made her Olympic debut before enthusiastic hometown crowds.

When she is no longer skiing competitively, she plans to pursue grad studies in forensic psychology then to move on, possibly, to law school.