From skis to saddle: Georgia Simmerling heads to the track cycling World Cup this weekend in Hong Kong

For five-time World Cup ski medalist Georgia Simmerling, cycling in 2016 is about more than cross-training in preparation for the sport with which she’s already synonymous. This year, it’s a pursuit and a passion of its own—and it’s taking her to Hong Kong this weekend.

The event in which she’ll be competing overseas is the track cycling World Cup of Jan. 16-17.

“I made a big decision to put ski racing and ski cross off for a season,” Simmerling told reporters with the CBC, reflecting on her shifting of athletic gears. “It’s going to be a super, super hard goal to accomplish and it’s a very tough challenge, but I really believe that I can go to Rio.” Contention at the Rio 2016 Olympics may be a tall ambition, but for the 26-year-old athlete—who only saw her first velodrome a little over a year and a half ago, she told reporters—it’s one within reach, seven months out and counting.

Her performance in Hong Kong this weekend, of course, will be especially decisive on that count.

Simmerling’s first experience on the wood of a velodrome track, she said, was back in June 2014 in Los Angeles, when she participated in a Cycling Canada talent ID camp. Initially deterred somewhat by the speed and the intensity of it all, she recalled, the appeal of the sport quickly won over, and she was hooked.

“I had never ridden a track bike, and I showed up to L.A. and was like, ‘Holy moly there’s not a chance I’m getting on that thing,'” she explained. “I fell in love with the sport after a week.”

Shortly after first getting her feet wet in the world of competitive cycling, she was already proving her dedication. Simmerling’s quick return to the saddle after a crash in early 2015 attested to that, its results quickly evident by the accomplished athlete being named to Canada’s World Cup squad so soon—something that team officials described as an exception. In Hong Kong, she’ll compete alongside Canadian talent like Jasmin Glaesser, Allison Beveridge, Laura Brown and Kirsti Lay, a roster from whom team officials are expecting big, big things this weekend.

“Anything less than a medal would be a disappointment,” Canada’s endurance track coach Craig Griffin told reporters. “They are gold medal hopefuls.”