Colliard was a pharmacy student at the University of Geneva and was a member of the Swiss women's ski club . Only shortly before the start of the 1956 Winter Olympics in Cortina d'Ampezzo was she able to qualify for the Swiss Olympic team with a second place in the slalom of the SDS race in Grindelwald . She then achieved a sensation in the Olympic slalom: With start number 1, she duped her competitors, completed both rounds with the best time and in the end became Olympic champion with a lead of over three seconds. In the same year she became Swiss champion in slalom. On February 3, the first competition of the 1958 World Cup, the slalom, fell and suffered serious injuries, so that she was out of action for the next races; she suffered a strained ligament in her left ankle and a collateral ligament in her left knee.
After completing her pharmacy studies, she married in Geneva in 1960 and took her husband's family name. Two years later she moved to the winter sports resort of Montana and opened a pharmacy there .