'It was easy to keep the secret and stick to our Olympic focus'

The big interview Emma Finucane Olympic medallist talks about her raw emotions while racing and how she kept quiet about her boyfriend's defection to GB

- Donald McRae

"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.