Georgia Simmerling's debut World Cup ski cross race happened less than three years ago, so you'd expect the 24-year-old West Vancouver native to remember it well.
Alas, for the Grouse Tyee Ski Club alumna, it's all kind of a blur.
"There were too many thoughts, there was too much going on in my mind for me to even remember one particular thing," Simmerling told the North Shore News last week. "I was just a deer in the headlights."
Simmerling didn't stay stunned for long, however. This week she was named to the team that will represent Canada in Olympic ski cross at the Sochi Games, recognition for her rapid run up the national team ranks following her switch from alpine racing to ski cross in 2011. She'll join Kelowna's Kelsey Serwa and Whistler's Marielle Thompson on a women's ski cross team that is expected to be a major medal contender.
Simmerling, however, is the least experienced of the bunch. She started as an alpine racer and even earned a berth in the 2010 Olympic Games, finishing 27th in Super G at Whistler Creekside as a 20-year-old. During those same Games ski cross made its Olympic debut with Ashleigh McIvor becoming a national star after winning gold for Canada.
Simmerling liked what she saw and made the switch at the start of the 2011 season. She was fast right away but lacked the experience needed to pass people and stay out of trouble in the heats.
Midway through her first year she was racing in a U.S. Grand Prix event in Utah when she crashed and fractured three vertebrae. The next day she posted an entry into her online blog that was both chilling and funny.
"I performed some gymnastics with a few cartwheels on my skis and then I beached-whaled it for some metres on my belly, before doing another gymnastics move and slapping down on my back. Who knew I was so graceful!" she wrote, adding that she even attempted to get back into the race before realizing something was seriously wrong. She was carted down the slope on a stiff wooden board and ended up in a Salt Lake City hospital and told she would need to stay in a brace for the next two to three months. By the next morning she was gingerly walking around and soon travelled back to Canada to recuperate.
It didn't take long for Simmerling to heal up her bones and her psyche - she returned to competition the following winter and scored her first and only World Cup podium result less than a year after the accident, finishing second in a race in San Candido, Italy. Though she hasn't hit the podium again, her results have been strong - in her three seasons on the World Cup circuit she's placed in the top 10 in 11 of her 18 races. Her last race before Sochi, a World Cup in Kreischberg, Austria, ended in a sixth-place finish.
Simmerling said she's improved immensely since her first season in ski cross, a sport that sees four racers at a time blasting down a single track that contains bumps, jumps and curves.
"I'm giving my coaches a lot less grey hairs," she said with a laugh. "I'm a lot more consistent, I'm way more confident going into races now. I know I can be the best and it's skiing with chicks like Marielle and Kelsey that has really progressed my learning curve quickly."
Simmerling said she has always been OK with the traffic generated by a ski cross pack but she had to learn how to make her way to the front of the pack and stay there.
"You have to be comfortable with (traffic) because you're around it every day doing ski cross," she said. "It's things like passing zones and protecting your line, drafting that I am getting more comfortable with. Have less people pass me and making more passes myself."
Her success has brought pride to the little ski club run out of Grouse Mountain. A month ago Simmerling spent a day on the slopes with some Tyee kids and got a taste of the celebrity treatment.
"They were pretty cute," she said. "I went up the chairlift with these two little girls and there were two other girls in the chair ahead of us and they screamed back, 'Oh my God, you're so lucky that you're going up the chair with Georgia.' It was pretty adorable."
Simmerling could be a lot more famous following the Olympic ski cross competition scheduled for Feb. 21 at the Rosa Khutor Extreme Park. Though she is a relative rookie in the sport, the results say Simmerling could be a contender to hit the podium. She's betting at least one of the Canadians will claim some hardware.
"We're a strong team and we're out to hunt down some medals for sure," she said, adding that the experience she gained at the 2010 Games will be invaluable for her this time around. "I'm going to Sochi to get a medal, and not just experience the Games."
