Athlete: Skiing
Year to be Inducted: 2026
Date of Birth: July 10, 1910
Born in: Ottawa, Ontario

Ottawa’s William G. “Bud” Clark enjoyed a storied career on snow in the 1930s and in Canadian sport leadership.

Born in 1910, Clark became a champion Nordic Combined skier when the discipline included cross-country skiing, alpine skiing and ski jumping. The Ottawa Citizen deemed him “the finest all-round skier to come out of Ottawa and the Gatineau hills.”

Clark developed his winning ways by capturing the National Capital Division Cross-Country Championship in 1929 and the Intercollegiate All-Round Ski Championship and Combined Championship Title in Lake Placid, NY, in 1931.

Clark returned to Lake Placid the following year for the 1932 Winter Olympic Games in his first of two Olympic appearances for Team Canada. He finished 38th in the men’s 18 km cross-country ski race for his top Olympic result, just ahead of his 39th-place performance at the 1936 Games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.

Clark went on to win the first-ever Canadian University Ski Meet in Montebello, QC in 1934, placing first in the 10-mile cross-country race, second in the downhill and third in ski jumping. The following year, he won the Dominion Champion Ski Runner Race, which stretched over 32 miles from Ste. Agathe to Shawbridge, QC.

Clark’s accomplishments continued on the administrative side of sport. He was an original member of the 1930s Canadian Amateur Sports Advisory Council, which wrote documentation that served as the basis for fitness and amateur sport legislation.

He also served as a director of the Canadian Olympic Association, and then as technical committee chair and president of the Canadian Amateur Ski Association in the 1950s. And then in 1966, the Canadian Ski Hall of Famer was recognized as the first recipient of the Maki Memorial Trophy for Sportsman of the Year.