Her talent for track and field was identified in her teens while she was at Gorse Park High School in Stretford, Greater Manchester.

[6][7] Her talents came along with some unwanted attention and she later recounted: "I was also called racist names as I jogged in the city and white parents approached me at meetings pleading that I should allow their daughters to win".

[2] The eighteen-year-old Saunders soon made an impact at the Canadian Track and Field Championships by winning a national title double in the high jump and 400 metres.

[8] Entering senior competition, she decided to represent her country of birth and in her major debut she placed eighth in the pentathlon at the 1970 British Commonwealth Games.

She was a semi-finalist in the 400 m and ran in the heats with the relay team including Ruth Williams, Una Morris and Rosie Allwood.

[8] She was chosen to run both the individual and relay sprint events for Canada at the 1974 British Commonwealth Games in January and delivered a Canadian record of 51.67 seconds to win the gold medal.

[2] She was eliminated in the first round of the 800 metres and placed a distant eighth in the relay final, running with Margaret Stride, Joyce Yakubowich, and Rachelle Campbell.

Her last major tournament was the Liberty Bell Classic – held due to the 1980 Olympic boycott – where she was the best of the Western-aligned nations, beating American Robin Campbell and Ann Mackie-Morelli of Canada.