Nicolien Sauerbreij was born in the small village De Hoef in the province Utrecht in the Netherlands. She has a sister Marieke Sauerbreij, who is also a professional snowboarder. Her father is Maarten Sauerbreij, who is also her coach. Her first podium position was in the world cup in Mont-Sainte-Anne 2001. She became second in the parallel giant slalom. On 15 September 2002 she won her first World cup in the parallel giant slalom. This was in Chile at the Valle Nevado. In the same season she had her second victory in Slovenia at the Maribor. Sauerbreij has also competed in several world cups with success, achieving several podium positions, including first placings in 2002, 2003, 2008 and 2010. She finished first in the overall standings of the parallel giant slalom World Cup in the 2007–2008 World Cup season and also first in the overall standings of the parallel giant slalom World Cup in the 2009–2010 World Cup season. She won the 2010 Dutch sportswoman of the year award.
At the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, she was the flag bearer for the Netherlands and she was among the outsiders for a medal. Since snowboarding is a small sport in the Netherlands, Sauerbreij used the wax services provided by the Italian team. Due to using the wrong wax on her board she did not qualify among the first sixteen that entered the knock-out rounds. At the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino she managed to qualify among the last sixteen and was determined to prove herself on the Olympic stage. In the first knock-out round she faced German Amelie Kober. Kober fell during the first run, giving Sauerbreij the maximum advantage for the second run, 1.5 seconds. In the second run Sauerbreij decided to go down safely and not fall herself. However Kober managed to come back on Sauerbreij and beat her with 0.03 of a second in the final metres. Kober went on to reach the final and take the silver medal. At the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Nicolien Sauerbreij won the gold medal on the women's parallel giant slalom . This was the first Dutch medal at a non-ice skating event in the Winter Olympics, and the 100th Dutch gold medal at the Olympic Games.
