In the year 1990, Chalmers won two Commonwealth Games titles in Auckland, New Zealand, winning both the 1500 meter race and the 3000 meter race in a World leading time of 8:38.38. In 1992, she qualified for the Olympics in the cross-country event. even though her father had died in 1984 before the Olympic trials she thought of him while she ran her race. after the race, in which she finished third (behind Yelena Romanova and Tatyana Dorovskikh) and qualified for the bronze medal, she explained to reporters about her father, "I said to him when he was in the hospital that I wanted to prove to him that I could do it".