It’s a good thing Emma Finucane is such a good sprinter. Britain’s rising track star has to drag an extra creature around the track with her. “His name is Harold and he’s part of me,” Finucane laughs, rolling up her trouser leg to show me a large growth just below her left kneecap. “But he’ll be gone soon. After Paris. I’m having surgery to have him removed.”
Whether Finucane and Harold can end their relationship on a high will be one of the big stories of the final week of these Games. To say there are high expectations for the young Welsh rider would be an understatement.
None other than Dame Laura Kenny has backed Finucane to win “multiple medals” in Paris, starting on Monday in the women’s team sprint, the first medal up for grabs in track cycling. Then in the keirin on Thursday and the individual sprint on the final day of the Games on Sunday. “I keep saying it and I keep thinking ‘don’t say it because you’re just putting her under pressure’,” Kenny said again this week. “But honestly, she could be the first woman to win three gold medals in one Olympics, and she’s only 21.”
Fortunately, Finucane seems the type to handle this insane level of expectation, which has only increased since Katie Archibald’s devastating injury a few weeks ago. In the Scot’s absence, the British track cycling team will look to Finucane for inspiration at these Games.
She knows it and she’s determined not to let it affect her.
Bubbly, good-natured, it’s not that Finucane doesn’t suffer from pressure. She does. Finucane (pronounced “Fi-NOO-kuhn”), who grew up on an army base in the Welsh town of Carmarthen, famously had a cry in the toilets at Glasgow Velodrome before becoming world sprint champion at the age of 20 last summer. It’s just that she seems to be getting better at dealing with it.
“It was a huge job to learn how to race as a world champion,” she says. “I went through so many emotions. I worked a lot with the GB psychologists. I developed coping strategies. Like talking to people, watching YouTube videos, listening to music, going for walks. The Euros [the European Track Cycling Championships in January] was a very proud moment for me, because despite the pressure I still won.
“Now it’s the pressure of people saying I’m going to win three golds. And that’s hard. You want to try and use it to be really confident. But I’m not really the type of person who just walks around and is like that [Finucane mimes swaggering].
“I think I’m just going to try to own it,” she says. “The emotions might come up. Like in Glasgow when I had to go to the toilet. I might experience that again. But I know that feeling now. It doesn’t have to be bad. I think that’s okay. Because if you bottle it up, suppress your emotions, you’re going to race like crazy.”
Finucane giggles, and you’re reminded of how young she is. She’s only been part of the elite programme for a few years. Sitting on the velodrome, looking down at Jason Kenny coaching the men’s sprint team, she notes how exciting it was when he first took notice of her. “He rolled me up for a keirin once and I thought, ‘Oh my god, it’s Jason Kenny!’ And he said, ‘Come on, Emma.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, let’s go!’ It’s cool to have people like that around you every day. To come and train and have Sir Jason Kenny there coaching the boys.”
‘My dream as a 10-year-old was to ride the Tour de France’
Finucane wasn’t always into track cycling. In fact, she wasn’t into cycling at all. Her dad played rugby, her mum ran. “We did everything, scouts, running, triathlons, netball. And then we started cycling at my local velodrome in Carmarthen. We lived on an army base, which was right next door. And my sister Rosie, who’s 11 months younger than me, and I would cycle around the velodrome, do cyclo-cross. And when you turned 10, you were allowed on the track.”
In the beginning Finucane was more interested in endurance. At the national championships she won the 500m time trial and the sprint for a year. But she also won the Madison and the scratch race in her age group. It was former GB sprinter Matt Crampton who advised her to focus on the sprint events.
“I thought, ‘What?’ I hated the gym! I hated running two laps and then getting off. I just didn’t get it. My dream as a 10-year-old was always to do the Tour de France. And I still love cycling. But then I became European champion and I thought, ‘Oh, this could actually happen!'”
Finucane signed up for the GB programme and moved to Manchester to live in a house with other young riders including Hamish Turnbull, Millie Tanner, Lewis Stewart and later Hayden Norris. “It was the best time of my life,” she says. “It was like a little family and I really grew up. Millie taught me how to clean, how to cook chicken and Hamish taught me how to do laundry. You go home to them, you watch TV with them, you have the emotional rollercoaster with them. I loved it…”
Finucane now lives in Bredbury with fellow Carmarthen rider Jess Roberts and still doesn’t particularly enjoy the gym. She says she can “only” do about 1,500 watts in a sprint. When I tell her that sounds like a lot, she laughs. “Man, some of the girls on the other teams are doing crazy numbers. But it’s all in how you use it. I’m not the strongest girl on the scene, but I can win bike races. I just do it a little differently. So half the time my max power isn’t anywhere near the other girls, but maybe I’m more efficient on the bike.”
Harold’s presence means she has to do things a little differently. Finucane can’t do squats at the gym, for example. She tried it at first because she thought everyone else was doing it. But it quickly became clear to her coach that it was doing more harm than good. “One of my legs is longer than the other,” she shrugs.
“I’ve always been a bit of a fickle person. Now I do other exercises. And I’ve kind of figured out that, like, ‘That’s me.’ I’m in my own lane. I can lift big weights in other exercises, leg press or whatever. We don’t all have to follow the same program.”
Will it be a big moment to say goodbye to Harold? “He might grow back!” she says, laughing. “I remember speaking to the surgeon. They said, ‘There’s no guarantee it won’t happen’.” But yes, Finucane is ready. She’s a huge F1 fan and is also looking forward to heading to Monza for the Italian Grand Prix next month. “I’m an OG,” she makes clear. “Not a Netflix newbie.” Who’s her favourite driver? “It used to be Max. Now I’m Team Lando.”
‘We’re going to have to break a world record’
First, she has to deal with the small matter of the Olympics. Finucane is clear that Monday’s team sprint – the first time Britain has qualified for a women’s team sprint since Victoria Pendleton and Jess Varnish were controversially disqualified at London 2012 – is her top priority. “It’s the most controllable event,” she explains. “Three girls, three laps and you know more or less what it takes to win gold. You’ve got to break a world record. We know that.”
Win the team sprint, Finucane figures, and everything else is a bonus. She laughs again. “Am I ready? I think two years ago I didn’t even think I would go to Paris and now I’m world champion and everyone is tipping me for big things. I don’t know. I’m just trying to do my best. I’m trying to make the younger me proud.
“The Olympics are everybody’s dream. I’ve been dreaming about it since I was about 10. So yeah, I think… am I ready? I probably never will be. But I’m going to try.”
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