Canada spins its way into fourth

Forced to retire from gymnastics due to a back injury, Laura Brown signed up for a learn-to-ride program at Calgary’s Olympic Oval.

In the summer months, Brown bashed her bike around the concrete at the aging Glenmore Velodrome. But for most of the year, she pedalled furiously on a bike trainer trackside at the oval and watched in wonder as a golden generation of Canadian speedskaters — Jeremy Wotherspoon, Cindy Klassen, Clara Hughes and Catriona LeMay Doan — ripped around the ice in circles, day after day.

“They’re all heroes of Canadian sport,” Brown, 29, said Thursday at the Rio Velodrome. “They were just so disciplined. I was 14 at the time and pretty new and distracted. So just watching the discipline and the focus they brought to every session, I sat there for hours watching and taking it all in.”

On Thursday, Hughes was in the stands as Brown, Georgia Simmerling of West Vancouver, B.C., Allison Beveridge of Calgary and Jasmin Glaesser of Vancouver kept their gold-medal hopes alive — barely — by finishing with the fourthfastest time in team pursuit qualifying at four minutes 19.599 seconds.

Canada won bronze at the 2012 Games, so fourth is not why they’re here.

“I’m just frustrated with my personal performance,” said Brown, who could be subbed out for Saturday’s first-round and finals by Kirsti Lay of Medicine Hat, Alta. “We have a lot more in us as a team. That wasn’t the time we were going for, but we made it through.”

They’ll need to go a lot faster come Saturday ’s first round, when the secondplace Americans face thirdplace Australia and Canada draws Great Britain. The winners of those two races will battle for gold.

Great Britain set a new world record Thursday in a blistering 4:13.620 — nearly six seconds ahead of the Canadians.

“Anything can happen,” Canadian coach Craig Griffin said of Saturday’s matchup. “We’ve got to ride with them at some point, so it doesn’t matter. Just take your chances and go out there and ride hard.”