The cycling track events at the 2024 Paris Olympics opened on Monday with the women's team sprint.

The other Canadian team, despite featuring Olympic sprint champion Kelsey Mitchell and Tokyo Keirin bronze medalist Laurianne Genest, did not fare as well as they would have liked.

Mitchell explained that the team's focus was on the individual sprint and keirin, adding that they had not yet fully adapted to the three-person team sprint, a new discipline that debuted at the Paris Olympics as part of a push for gender equality.

"A woman running 750m is very different from what we have done in the past. It's world record after world record, and it's incredible to see women running so fast. It's going to keep getting faster and faster, so I think we either have to step up or step down," Mitchell told the assembled media after Monday's final.

"It's a great start to the Olympics. In the team sprint, there has never been a record of three people, so we were able to set an Olympic record. Of course, we will have better results in the future.

"We came here to win a medal, but we knew we were not quite there yet in the team sprint. Our best is not there yet. We are in the top eight in the world, which is good, but we want to be higher up.

"The sprint here is kind of our focus and hopefully we can build on this momentum and get our legs better in the next competition.

Canada's Mitchell, who was last in qualifying, was second in the first and final rounds.

"In round 1 I went for P3, but obviously I was P2 and [Genest] was a little bit better in P3. So we'll keep working on it and hopefully in the future we can compete more with the other cars."

The change made the Canadian trio's time 0.762 seconds faster, a significant margin improvement, but not enough to advance to the medal final.

Mitchell saw the bright side: the team was still ranked 8th in the world, and there was room for improvement.

"We achieved a PB, which is exciting," Mitchell said. 'We're just watching the other teams flying. We definitely need to work on the team sprint if that is our priority. Sarah's start was good and her P2 time was there. But we still have a long way to go to compete with the rest of the world."

Asked what he would change to be more competitive, Mitchell said, "We need to be more team oriented. We need to do it for each other, not for individuals."

"We need to be more competitive.

"Right now me and Lau aren't really focused on the start, it's hard to catch up to Sarah who is setting P1 times. It takes away a lot. So we have a lot of work to do. We are certainly not at our best, which is exciting. We knew we wouldn't make it to Paris. So I wish them the best for LA (2028 Olympics)."

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