Myriam Bedard

As the Olympics grew closer, Bedard believed she was regaining her form, until she suffered a lower back injury in early 1998. She wanted to compete, though she did not need to do so for a living. She told Dave Stubbs of the Montreal Gazette, "I'm a competitor, a perfectionist. Every race I do I really want to do well. I'm not satisfied just being here. With all I've been through the past few years, this is the way I probably should feel. But I don't. It's against my nature."

In Nagano, Bedard was one of the oldest competitors in the women's biathlon. She finished 33rd in the 7.5-km event and 50th in the 15-km event. Although after the Olympics she said she would still compete, Bedard's last event in biathlon was in March 1999, a World Cup event that was on the Val Cartier military base where she first learned the sport. As Stubbs wrote in the Montreal Gazette, "Bedard sees only straight ahead, enjoying life without benefit of a rear-view. And it's plain to see she has discovered something that pleases her every bit as much as did biathlon when she came to it as a teenaged army cadet, wearing rented, ill-fitting equipment."