Track cycling sensation Emma Finucane made British Olympic history by winning individual sprint bronze, marking her third medal at the Paris Games.
Not since 1964, when Mary Rand won medals of every color in athletics, has a British woman achieved three podium finishes at a single Games.
For the 21-year-old Finucane, competing in her first Olympics, this bronze follows a bronze in the keirin and a historic team sprint gold.
In the bronze medal final, she comfortably defeated the Netherlands’ Hetty van de Wouw over two legs, adding 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 defeated Finucane in the semi-finals, won sprint gold by beating Germany’s Lea Friedrich, adding to the keirin title she claimed earlier in the week.
Jack Carlin had hoped to join Finucane in winning three medals in Paris, but his campaign ended with a brutal crash in the keirin final.
Carlin, who had already won team sprint silver and individual bronze, managed to walk off the track gingerly, as did his teammate Hamish Turnbull after crashing out in the previous round.
This marks the first time since Athens 2004 that a British rider has not topped the podium in the men’s keirin, an event where Sir Chris Hoy and Sir Jason Kenny shared the last four golds with two each.
Instead, Dutch superstar Harrie Lavreysen secured his third Olympic title, achieving a clean sweep of the sprint events in Paris.
There was also disappointment for Neah Evans, who finished 15th in the women’s omnium.
Finucane living her ‘teenage dream’
Hopes were high at the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines velodrome 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 by winning the sprint rainbow jersey at the World Championships in Glasgow, becoming the first British rider to do so since Becky James a decade earlier.
Although her golden hat-trick did not materialize in Paris, her performances have demonstrated that Great Britain has a new sprinting star in Finucane. Before these Olympics, Team GB had not won a women’s sprinting medal since the Rio Games eight years ago, when James secured double silver and Katy Marchant, one of Finucane’s team sprint teammates in Paris, took a bronze.
Before Monday’s team sprint gold, Finucane’s “hero” Victoria Pendleton was the only British female sprinter to have stood atop the Olympic podium, with her individual sprint and keirin golds in 2008 and 2012, respectively.
“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 equalling those 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.”
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