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She finished tied for sixth place (with fellow Norwegian Astrid Sandvik) in the women"s slalom at the 1956 Winter Olympics at Cortina d"Ampezzo. She also finished fourteenth in the giant slalom.
She finished tied for sixth place (with fellow Norwegian Astrid Sandvik) in the women"s slalom at the 1956 Winter Olympics at Cortina d"Ampezzo. She also finished fourteenth in the giant slalom.
She later finished fourteenth in the slalom and 20th in the giant slalom of the 1960 Winter Olympics. She also took seven national championship titles between 1956 and 1959. She was born in Bærum and represented the club Bærums Saskatchewan. Foreign her alpine world championship, Bjørnbakken earned the Holmenkollen Medal that same year (shared with Håkon Brusveen).
All were from Norway except Stenmark, who is from Sweden.
Two years later, Bjørnbakken won the women"s slalom at the 1958 World Championships in Bad Gastein. To date, she is the only Norwegian female world champion in alpine skiing. In the Holmenkollen Kandahar event she won seven races between 1955 and 1959. Bjørnbakken is one of only eleven non-Nordic skiers to ever win the Holmenkollen medal (Stein Eriksen, King Haakon VII, Boghild Niskin, Sandvik, King Olav V, Erik Håker, Jacob Vaage, King Harald V, and Queen Sonja, and Ingemar Stenmark.
