Kamloops cyclist Catharine Pendrel is calling time on an Olympic career after her most recent effort at the Tokyo games, six months after giving birth to her daughter, Dara.

Pendrel finished 18th out of 38 riders that started the race with a time of one hour, 23 minutes and 47 seconds – 8:01 behind Jolanda Neff of Switzerland who took the gold medal ahead of two other Swiss riders – Sina Frei and Linda Indergand who won silver and bronze, respectively.

“Heart is full. It is such an honour to compete at the Olympics and crossing the line having done my best, with cheering fans and the special group of women that make up the mountain biking circuit surrounding me is a memory I will cherish,” she said on facebook.

Her Olympic finish was her best result of the season after finishing 52nd, 23rd, 26th, and 21st in four 2021 World Cup races since giving birth which currently has her in 58th overall in World Cup standings at the age of 40.

“I’ve had so many women message me, women that would like to have children and women that do have children and recognize what it takes to get back to this level,” Pendrel told the Canadian Press after the race. “Having these really visible examples of what is possible is really inspiring, because you do get a lot of people coaching very, very conservative approaches.”

“And I think [for] a lot of women, being athletic is a huge part of their identity, and having that permission to be who they are and who they want to be, as a mom, as they were before.”

Pendrel won a bronze medal at the Rio Olympics in 2016. She’s also a two time world champion in 2011 and 2014, has a Commonwealth Games gold medal from 2014, a gold medal from the 2007 Pan American Games, and a bronze from the 2015 Pan Am Games in Toronto.

She’s also competed at four Olympics – Beijing 2008, where she finished fourth and London 2012, where she finished ninth – being the other two.

“You soak up every Olympics, because you never know if you’re going to get an opportunity to have another Olympics,” Pendrel, also told the Canadian Press.

“But yeah, after the race, I was more nostalgic than other times, just getting to see the girls who had the races they dreamed of, the girls that had really big disappointments, and having experienced the highs and lows of Olympics before myself, and having that perspective to kind of be there for them.”