Anne Heggtveit was born into a skiing family. Heggtveit's Norwegian-born father was the 1934 Canadian cross-country skiing champion and she had two uncles who represented Canada that the 1932 and 1936 Olympics. Growing up in the national capital region, by age seven she was winning local senior women's titles and by 13 she had won all the major competitions in the Ottawa area. Heggtveit made her way to the international stage in 1954 at age 15 when she won the giant slalom at Norway's Holmenkollen. Two years later, she was named to Canada's Winter Olympic team. At Cortina d'Ampezzo, she finished 22nd in the downhill. Her athletic career in the late-1950s was plagued by injuries, but Heggtveit worked herself back into competitive shape. In 1959, she won major international races in both North America and Europe as she prepared for the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley, California. The Olympic competition began disappointingly as Heggtveit finished 12th in both the downhill and giant slalom. However, on February 26, 1960, she and 40 other women contested the technically challenging slalom course. By the end of the day's two runs, Heggtveit had won gold by more than three seconds. It was Canada's first skiing Olympic gold medal. The Olympics that year doubled as the world championships. For her victory in the Olympic slalom, Heggtveit was also awarded the slalom and combined alpine world championships. Heggtveit retired from competitive international skiing following the 1960 Olympics, but she remained involved in the sport running a ski program in Vermont for many years. She was inducted into the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame in 1971 and was among the Canadian Ski Hall of Fame's original inductees in 1982.