‘It’s a good question,” Emma Finucane says as she thinks searchingly of the most important lesson she has learned about herself after a year like no other for the 21-year-old sprint cyclist. She won three Olympic medals, including one gold, and two world champion titles while carrying a secret she could not even share with her family for many months.
Finucane’s fierce honesty and questioning introspection is rare in such a young rider who is in the foothills of a career that may yet transcend the achievements of British Olympic track riders led by Jason and Laura Kenny and Chris Hoy. Her candour and intelligence soon emerge as she charts the physical and psychological depths explored at the Paris Olympics before she talks openly about the way she and her boyfriend, Matthew Richardson, who won three sprint medals for Australia at the Games, knew he would soon switch countries and move to GB Cycling. That decision shocked and dismayed his former teammates and supporters.
Finucane begins with the lessons of Paris: “I learned that I can push my body way past limits I didn’t think I had because of how headstrong I am. That’s something I want to take forward.”
That one word – “headstrong” – jumps out. It usually works as a definition of youthful and stubborn determination. But Finucane explains how she became mentally strong while facing acute vulnerabilities that emerged when she first became a world champion in the individual sprint in Glasgow last year. Those emotions then turned into a storm in Paris.
When I mention that the individual sprint is a taxing psychological challenge – as it resembles a cat-and-mouse tactical battle before it becomes a flat-out sprint – the double world champion says: “I hate it. I really struggle with it and last year, at my first world championship final in front of a home crowd, I felt sick. I couldn’t control myself and I need to sort this out because, in sprinting, you have 30 seconds to make a decision. You need to be fully focused, otherwise you might as well not race.”
Sitting on a sofa at the Manchester Velodrome, she reiterates her point: “The physical side is the easy bit. I reckon it’s 80% mental because, physically, you can be in the best shape of your life and crumble because of your head. So I’ve learned to love that side and use it, and learned how my brain works.
“Last year, before the world’s [individual final] I went to the toilet and cried as I needed to let this emotion out. Racing on emotion is the worst thing because you’ll make irrational decisions and mistakes. That’s when [crying before races] started and I was like: ‘I need to sort this out.’
“After that I was pretty good but at the Olympics I was experiencing something totally new. In Paris, I cried quite a lot before each race. It was my way of letting my emotion out but it was constant because I raced so much with three events. I was exhausted, physically.”
She smiles when I say that crying is also exhausting mentally. “Massively. I wouldn’t say I need to push it to one side but I need to learn from it. At the next Olympics in LA [in 2028] I don’t want to be the same person. I want to learn why did I feel like that? Why did I need to let that emotion out? Who did I speak to who made me feel better? It’s emotionally exhausting when you’re racing for seven days and, as I look at Olympic champions who win multiple Olympic medals, that needs to be addressed.”
Has she used a psychologist? “Yes. A psychologist helps you understand yourself, but I also have my coaches and my teammates have been really good, like Katy Marchant who [at 31] has done three Olympics. Katy’s been a massive influence in helping me control my nerves.”
Finucane, Marchant and Sophie Capewell won the first track cycling gold at the Paris Olympics in the team sprint. Great Britain had never won an Olympic medal in the women’s team sprint before and Finucane stresses they were motivated by the fact their discipline had been seen for years as the weak link. “When I came on to the programme [in 2021] I was 18. Then, once I was integrated into the team, they were like: ‘We want to qualify for the Olympics.’ The narrative changed to: ‘We want to medal and win the Olympics.’ We had such a sense of achievement when we did that as we had worked so hard. We weren’t the weakest link any more. We won the only GB [track cycling] gold and that was incredible.”
They raced three times and broke the world record on each occasion. “We knew exactly what to do,” Finucane says. “We barely spoke to each other because we didn’t need to discuss gears or plans. I love the team sprint and it set me up nicely for the individual events.”
Laura Kenny, the most successful British woman Olympian with six medals, five of them gold, had used her column in the Guardian to predict great things for Finucane. Kenny suggested the young Welsh sprinter would win three golds in Paris. “To hear Laura speaking about me like that gave me such confidence,” Finucane says. “It was like: ‘Wow, she really believes in me.’
“It’s quite daunting to hear that as you’re like: ‘Shit, I need to do that.’ But I flipped it and thought that success was just becoming an Olympian. So what happened was incredible.”
Finucane won bronze in the keirin and the individual sprint and her delight was as justified as it was wise. There was no carping about missing two golds and Finucane says: “I learned such a lot and I’m really content and proud of what I achieved. It’s so hard to win one Olympic gold and then to back it up with two bronze medals meant the world.”
She sounded very young in Paris when, after the team sprint, she said she would go to sleep with the gold medal under her pillow. “I did that for seven nights,” she says now with a smile. “I added a bronze, and then another, under the pillow.”
Finucane’s achievements seem all the more extraordinary as she and Richardson had to hide that the Australian, who won two sprint silvers and a bronze, had already held secret talks with British Cycling about moving to the country of his birth after the Olympics.
Could she at least tell her parents? “No one knew because if any leak came out, he could not ride the Olympics. I just wanted to help him and it was quite easy [to keep the secret] as it never came up in conversation with other people. I kept it to myself and we stuck to our Olympic focus.”
Finucane says she and Richardson have been a couple “since February but I’ve known him for a long time”.
Richardson was born in Maidstone and lived in Britain for the first nine years of his life until his parents immigrated to Australia. But he has since spoken passionately about his “dream” to return to Britain and ride for the country of his birth.
He and Finucane now live together in Manchester and she says: “Matty’s been a breath of fresh air. He loves the sport and it’s really refreshing coming into training together as he helps me out on the track. He’s so motivated and encouraging and it’s been really nice to have my partner here.”
Apart from suffering abuse on social media, and being banned from riding for Australia again, Richardson has had to adjust to life in Britain. “It’s definitely been a big change for him because he hasn’t lived here a long time,” Finucane says. “The traffic, and the weather, has been a bit like ‘Oh!’ for him. But having a heated velodrome and being closer to me has really helped him. He’s also closer to his family back in Maidstone and can see them more often. He’s settled in really well and training with me has been incredible. His work ethic is unreal.”
Finucane says they switch off easily from cycling once they get home after training. “We love Formula One and we love going out and making food together and we have that balance, which is really key when you’re with someone who does the same thing as you.”
They are riding in the UCI Champions League and at the opening event in France two weeks ago Finucane won the sprint and finished second in the keirin. Richardson was even more impressive in his first rides as a GB cyclist as he won both his events.
“I knew how hard it was to go out there, seeing the GB flags for the first time and having so much pressure,” Finucane says. “He was nervous because he’s had quite a lot of hate – but he raced his heart out and he was right to celebrate.’
This past weekend, in Apeldoorn in the Netherlands, Finucane and Richardson lost their respective Champions League leader jerseys to Alina Lysenko and Harrie Lavreysen, the brilliant Dutch sprinter who won three golds in Paris. But they have further opportunities in London, at the Olympic velodrome on Friday and Saturday night, as the Champions League concludes. “The atmosphere in London is insane,” Finucane says with a grin. “I love it.”
It has been a long and draining year and Finucane admits: “I had an emotional dip after the Olympics. I had two weeks off and when [Marchant and Capewell] said, ‘Let’s go for worlds’, I was like: ‘I don’t want to race.’ I’ve never felt like that in my career but I got back into training and it was weird and hard. It took a couple of weeks before I was ready.”
Finucane won world championship gold in the team and individual sprint and “since then I haven’t really stopped. After Champions League I’m having two months off and we’re going to Australia.”
Her life has changed this year and “there are a lot more opportunities now, and I’ve taken a few”, she says. “I did a Hello magazine shoot, which was really out of my comfort zone, very not me. But I’m still me. I’m still clumsy and trying to work things out.”
Finucane will limit such celebrity work as she is far more serious in following the example set by her teammate Katie Archibald who has faced terrible loss in her personal life, and catastrophic injuries, to remain the best endurance track rider in the world. “I’ve learned so much from her,” Finucane says of the 30-year-old.
“She takes ownership of her career and that’s something I want to one day do. I’m still quite young, but she is basically the CEO of her own career and she uses the expertise of people around her. That’s where I want to be as my long-term goal is definitely to do even better at the LA Olympics in 2028.”
