Olympic cross-country ski champion Beckie Scott new CEO of Nordiq Canada

Olympic medallist Beckie Scott poses for portrait in Morley, Alta., Thursday, June 17, 2021. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh

CANMORE, ALTA. — Olympic cross-country ski champion Beckie Scott wants to help athletes achieve the heights she did and guide her sport through challenging times.

The 50-year-old was named chief executive officer of Nordiq Canada, which is Canada’s governing body of cross-country and para Nordic skiing, on Monday.

Scott became the first Canadian and first North American woman to win an Olympic medal in cross-country skiing in 2002.

It took almost two and a half years for her bronze medal in women’s pursuit to be upgraded to gold. The two competitors who finished ahead of her were eventually disqualified for doping.

Scott and teammate Sara Renner earned women’s team pursuit silver in 2006. Scott reached the World Cup podium 15 times and ranked second in the world at the end of the 2006 season.

Scott was CEO for the past eight years and also the co-founder of Spirit North, which introduces Indigenous youth to land-based sport such as skiing, mountain biking and canoeing.

“I feel like having run an organization for the last eight years, a non-profit organization, that I had really developed a series of skills that I didn’t have necessarily before doing that,” Scott said.

“I still have a real passion for high performance sport and (thought) that I could contribute positively to this organization and most of all to athletes who are racing on behalf of this organization in their country.”

Scott, originally from Vermilion, Alta., now lives in Canmore, Alta., with her husband, national biathlon coach Justin Wadsworth, and their two children.

Scott spent years training at the Canmore Nordic Centre, where Nordiq Canada is headquartered.

She starts her new job March 17. Applications for the job closed in December. Megan Begley served as interim CEO.

Scott, who retired in 2006, previously served on the World Anti-Doping Agency’s athlete and executive committees, as well as the International Olympic Committee’s athletes' commission.

She is taking over the helm of a domestic organization with 80,000 elite and recreational skiers, coaches, and officials, and one that’s seeking another international star following the retirements of world champion Alex Harvey in 2019 and 16-time Paralympic champion Brian McKeever in 2022.

“I have full confidence that this team has the capacity to be among the best skiers in the world,” Scott said.

There are signs of rising talent. Edmonton’s Alison Mackie won a pair of bronze medals at the world junior cross-country ski championship and Quebec City’s Liliane Gagnon claimed two bronze medals in the world under-23 championship last month in Schilpario, Italy.

“I was a part of the system when it worked really well for athletes and I did succeed because of all the layers and levels of attention to detail and allocation of resources that were made available to me to reach my potential,” Scott said. “I want to create that same scaffolding, system and framework around the athletes we have now and those athletes coming up.”

Canada’s national sports organizations are begging the federal government for an increase in core funding, which is at 2005 levels.

Scott’s aware that increasing revenue is among her preliminary responsibilities.

“It’s no secret that sport in Canada has been underfunded. One of my biggest priorities will be to get us on stable financial ground,” she said.

“Throughout the hiring process, they were very honest with me about the financials and that it was a challenge. I have no doubt one of my first actions will be trying to secure financial support from the corporate and private sectors.

“When I started Spirit North, I had to learn that skill pretty quickly because I realized this is a great idea, a great concept and people will embrace it, but we need to keep the lights on and the coaches paid.”

Scott also returns to a high-performance sports system that’s undergone a reckoning around safe sport. Canada is still grappling with how to resolve current and historic cases of abuse and maltreatment in sport and how to stamp that behaviour out.

Scott intends to incorporate her own experience as an athlete into the national team’s culture.

“I come to this role with a unique mix of experiences of having both been a high-performance athlete and in my post-Olympic career having been an athlete representative at the IOC and at the World Anti-Doping Agency and just seeing how critically important that athlete voice is at those tables,” Scott said.

“I really believe that athletes need to be the core of an NSO and prioritizing their experience and workplace safety and everything that goes on around them will be top of mind every day.”

By Donna Spencer, The Canadian Press

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 10, 2025.