RIO DE JANEIRO -- Georgia Simmerling has been on the Olympic stage before, competing in alpine skiing at the 2010 Vancouver Games and ski cross four years later in Sochi.
The track cycling competition at the Rio Games required her to take her performance to a different level. It paid off Saturday as she helped the women's pursuit team win a bronze medal.
"You go to very, very dark places track cycling on the track," Simmerling said. "It's just pain, just pain. It gets progressively worse and then you go to a place where you just can't feel anything."
Simmerling, from West Vancouver, B.C., Montreal's Kirsti Lay, Calgary's Allison Beveridge and Jasmin Glaesser of Vancouver delivered a dynamic performance in the third-place race at the Rio Olympic Velodrome, finishing in four minutes 14.627 seconds.
New Zealand settled for fourth in a rather distant 4:18.459.
The Canadians came to Brazil with high hopes after winning bronze at the 2012 London Games and earning podium spots at the last four world championships.
But an impressive British team defeated Canada in world-record time (4:12.152) in the morning to advance to the gold-medal showdown against the United States. The Brits were even faster in the final, taking top spot in 4:10.236 as the Americans won silver in 4:12.454.
The Canadians, meanwhile, set a national record (4:15.636) in the morning loss and started strong again in the afternoon. Canada led by over a half-second at the 1,000-metre mark of the 4K race and pulled away over the last few laps as New Zealand faded.
"I'm so thankful to be here with these four amazing riders," Simmerling said. "I'm just so speechless."
Lay -- who won silver at the worlds in March with Simmerling, Glaesser and Beveridge -- was inserted back into the group in place of Vancouver's Laura Brown, who raced Thursday in the qualification round.
"We just stayed calm and it showed," said Canadian head coach Craig Griffin. "We got rolling nicely. When you come to race day, you don't change anything, you just do what you know.
"We've done it so many times, it was just like another training run."
While athletes have been moved in and out of the Canadian lineup like chess pieces since London -- Glaesser is the only remaining competitor from 2012 to suit up in Rio -- the results have stayed fairly consistent.
In the pursuit, teams start on opposite sides and riders follow each other closely in a line around the track. Against New Zealand, the Canadians maintained that delicate balance between staying in unison and not overdoing it in an attempt to go that little bit faster.
"I was on the front with about two-and-a-half laps to go and I was able to see them," Glaesser said of her opponents. "I just knew that we were riding (to) an Olympic medal. That's a great feeling."
Simmerling is the first Canadian athlete to compete in three different sports at three separate Olympics. She enjoyed a victory lap with her teammates as they waved the Maple Leaf to a near-sellout crowd in the 5,641-seat venue.
Simmerling then walked down the ramp, leaned her head back and exhaled. It was time to enjoy the fruits of all that leg-numbing training.
"Funny enough, the final ride actually hurt the least for me," she said. "I think that's because I made (few) mistakes. I'm getting better literally every time I'm on my bike and I'm learning from these girls."
It was a disappointing day for the two Canadians in the women's keirin. Monique Sullivan and Kate O'Brien, both from Calgary, were eliminated in their repechage heats.
Simmerling, meanwhile, won't be taking a break now that she owns an Olympic bronze. She has her eye on returning to the Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea in 2018.
"I think I'm getting back on skis in like a month," Simmerling said with a smile. "And my upper-body workouts start tomorrow."
