Aunli began training seriously in 1975 and competed in her first senior season in 1976, when she was 18. She became pregnant that year, and her husband received death threats as he was viewed as "ruining" her promising career. Aunli's pregnancy ended in a miscarriage, which she found mentally difficult. She also became the first winner of an official
Cross-Country World Cup after her overall victory in the
1981–82 FIS Cross-Country World Cup. At the
1984 Winter Olympics in
Sarajevo, she won two medals: gold in the 4 × 5 km relay and silver in 5 km. In her individual events, she finished twice in 4th place and once in 6th. That year, she was awarded ''
Morgenbladet's'' gold medal. Over her career, she won a total of 15 Norwegian Championships titles, 11 individual and 4 relays. She represented the club
Strindheim IL. Aunli was critical of media coverage of skiers during her career. She felt the press criticism of the older Norwegian women who competed with her at the 1976 Olympics, who did not have as good of results as the Soviet and Finnish skiers, was unduly harsh. She also thought that Norwegians did not take women's cross-country skiing seriously until the early 1980s, when they were highly successful at the
World Championships. In a 1986 interview, she recalled examples of a race being advertised as starting when the men's event began, after all the women had competed, as well as letters to the editor in
Adresseavisen in 1980 debating whether women should compete at all. Aunli also said that girls had received less support from the
Norwegian Ski Federation than boys, though she added, "Today we are treated equally". ==Cross-country skiing results==