Finucane makes history with third medal in Paris

Track cycling sensation Emma Finucane made British Olympic history by winning individual sprint bronze for her third medal of the Paris Games.

Not since 1964, when Mary Rand won a medal of every colour in athletics, has a British woman taken a hat-trick of podium finishes at a single Games.

For 21-year-old Finucane, appearing at her maiden Olympics, her latest bronze follows the same colour in the keirin as well as a historic team sprint gold.

She comfortably defeated the Netherlands’ Hetty van de Wouw over two legs in the bronze medal final to add an Olympic medal to her World Championship title in the event.

“I feel on top of the world,” Finucane told BBC Radio 5 Live.

“This whole week has been a rollercoaster for me, so many highs and so many lows. That bronze medal felt like a gold medal to me.

“I wanted to be in the gold final, but I had nothing left to give.

“To come away with three medals is more than what I could have dreamed of.”

Ellesse Andrews of New Zealand, who beat Finucane in the semi-finals, won sprint gold, beating Germany’s Lea Friedrich to add to the keirin title she won earlier in the week.

Jack Carlin had been hoping to join Finucane in winning three medals in Paris, but his campaign ended in a brutal crash in the keirin final.

Carlin, who won team sprint silver and individual bronze earlier in the Games, was able to gingerly walk off the track, as was team-mate Hamish Turnbull after he crashed out in the previous round.

It is the first time since Athens 2004 that a British rider has not topped the podium in the men’s keirin, with Sir Chris Hoy and Sir Jason Kenny sharing the last four golds in the event with two apiece.

Instead, Dutch superstar Harrie Lavreysen secured his third Olympic title, and therefore a clean sweep of the sprint events, in Paris.

Coming into the action at the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines velodrome, hopes had been high that Finucane could become the first British woman to win triple gold at a Games.

She had announced herself on the global stage last year when she bagged the sprint rainbow jersey at the World Championships in Glasgow – the first British rider to do so since Becky James 10 years earlier.

But while her golden hat-trick did not materialise in the French capital, her performances have proved that in Finucane, Great Britain has its latest star of sprinting.

Prior to these Olympics, Team GB had not won a women’s sprinting medal since the Rio Games eight years ago, when James won double silver and Katy Marchant – one of Finucane’s team sprint team-mates in Paris – took a bronze.

“It feels amazing. I know I had the expectation coming into these Olympics, but a gold and two bronzes is more than I could have expected,” she told BBC Sport.

“That bronze medal, I literally gave it everything I could.

“I’m really proud to deliver it on the final day. To come home with another medal, it’s unreal, I can’t believe it.”

Sixty years ago in Tokyo, Rand won long jump gold, pentathlon silver and 4x100m relay bronze, 36 years after swimmer Joyce Cooper took three medals home from the 1928 Games in Amsterdam.

On her achievements, Finucane said: “I am living my teenage dream and I love every second of it, but this is my job and I wouldn’t change it for the world.

“I want to keep doing what I do and keep making Britain proud.”