After a whirlwind year in which she announced herself as British cycling’s next biggest star, there are times when Emma Finucane has yet to find herself in a pinch.
It’s been a rollercoaster 12 months for the Welsh woman, who wrote her name into the record books by taking three medals at the Paris Olympics. Not since Mary Rand in 1964 has a British female Olympian won three individual medals at a single Games, when Finucane helped Great Britain to team sprint gold and won bronze in the individual keirin and sprint.
It marked a remarkable rise for the cyclist from Carmarthen, who won European, world and Olympic titles at the age of 21. “I call them my Oscars – no one can take them away from me,” beams Finucane, whose upward trajectory continued after the Games when she defended her sprint world title. “It all happened very quickly.”
Finucane, who has made no secret of her desire to score a hat-trick of gold at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, is already planning the continuation of her young career. Setting goals is of course in the DNA of every athlete. Keely Hodgkinson, the British Olympic champion, has set her sights on ‘Project 1:53’ to break the 41-year-old record in the women’s 800 metres. Yet Finucane, who turned 22 just before Christmas, takes a more relaxed approach when it comes to chasing the next big thing.
She’s already learned a thing or two about the ebbs and flows of elite sport after struggling to motivate herself for the World Track Championships in Denmark, two months after the Olympics. “That period was very difficult for me,” Finucane reflects. “After the Games I was emotionally exhausted. I had nothing left, which wasn’t surprising because it was the highlight of my year and I gave it my all. The girls said, ‘Let’s do the worlds!’ And I thought, ‘What? Why?’ I wanted to keep my title, but I had done everything I wanted to do. It’s really hard to go into battle, but you’ve already won the war.
Finucane successfully defended the individual sprint title she won in Glasgow last year, while she and her team sprint colleagues also added a world crown to their Olympic title and claimed Britain’s first gold in the event since 2008. . I’m so happy I went,” says Finucane, who considers herself lucky to have entered the sport in an era when women are no longer treated like little men. Dame Laura Kenny recently revealed at the Telegraaf Sports podcast for women that she struggled with ‘horrendous’ saddle sores after years of wearing skin suits designed for men and fitted with a ‘one size fits all’ chamois, before British Cycling began exploring female-friendly alternatives. Meanwhile, former British Paralympic cyclist Hannah Dines had to undergo surgery after her saddle caused swelling of her vulva.
“I’m grateful I didn’t have to learn the hard way,” says Finucane. “I ended up in a program that is almost fully developed. Laura was trying to get different chamois packs for the ladies and I just started another chamois for the men. I wish I was a part of it, but I’m also very grateful to have those role models who clearly know what they’re talking about and who have done the work for the next generation. Maybe I can do things for the next generation after me.”
Finucane is already aware of being a role model for the next generation of female track cyclists. At the age of 16, she made the decision to swap the windy trials around the Black Mountains, near her home in Carmarthen, for the planks of the velodrome. It not only meant fortnightly three-hour round trips in the family car to Newport’s indoor cycling track, but also shaping her body to meet the demands of a strength-based sport and confronting her own fears about body image.
“I got bigger in ways I didn’t want to,” Finucane says. “I was like, ‘I hate this.’ You get your period and your body changes. Obviously you need bigger legs to produce more force, but I didn’t want to reach a certain weight. I remember watching sprinters and not being sure if I wanted bigger legs or to look a little different.
“But then I accepted that I had to produce more power to be fast. I had to push my weight, push my body, eat more protein and build muscle to be the best in the world, and it’s something I really had to learn and accept. We get skin folds quite a bit and that was really scary because they were testing how much fat I have. But that is high performance, it is part of it. It is to help you in the end.”
She’s not sure that period of her life would be doubly difficult in today’s world. “Now you have TikTok and all the girls there look different [to me],” she says. “But I think it’s about who you surround yourself with, who you talk to. Sometimes it’s hard when you look at it from the outside, but I do things that normal people wouldn’t do. It’s just perspective.
“I had role models like Victoria Pendleton, but today athletes have their platforms. Emily Campbell [the British weightlifter] has talked a lot about body image and it’s incredible. Teenagers want to belong. That’s how I was. I didn’t want to look different and have bigger legs because I was ashamed. But now I use my legs for what I do on the track. Every girl looks different as an athlete. It’s incredible to have female role models these days and I just want it to continue.”
Last month she returned to the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines Velodrome in Paris for the UCI Track Champions League alongside her boyfriend Matt Richardson, who caused a stir after the Olympics when he switched from Australia to Britain. Finucane, who was informed of the secret long before the Games, insists he has added a new dynamic to her training. “He has been a huge inspiration to me,” says Finucane. “His work ethic is insane. The way he approaches the sport is really refreshing for me – not that I don’t like it anyway – it’s just seeing a different side of things.”
Would she ever consider a return to road racing? “No, I want to commit to track sprinting,” she says. “I like the road. In road cycling for women it took a long time to get there, while in track cycling it is almost the same for men and women. The road is still going and I’m excited to see how it’s progressing.”
Now the couple are enjoying a two-month holiday in Australia, and both are determined to relax at the start of a new Olympic cycle. “I’m definitely not taking my bike with me,” Finucane joked. After her medal-laden year, you can hardly blame Britain’s new queen of track cycling.
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