Image source, Getty Images
Finucane won her best-of-three final in two straight races
Emma Finucane and Dan Bigham won gold for Great Britain on day three of the European Track Cycling Championships.
Finucane, 21, became Britain’s first female European sprint champion by beating Lea Sophie Friedrich – a repeat result of last year’s world final.
Bigham, 32, beat Charlie Tanfield in an all-British men’s individual pursuit final, winning by almost two seconds in a time of four minutes 5.783 seconds.
Britain’s Neah Evans also took silver in the women’s omnium.
She finished fourth in the scratch, tempo and elimination races and, despite coming second in the points race, could not overturn the advantage of gold medal winner Anita Yvonne Stenberg of Norway.
Britain’s Ethan Vernon was fourth in the men’s scratch race.
“I’m speechless to be honest – I didn’t really know how I’d go coming into this competition,” Finucane said.
“I wanted to race aggressively and I feel like I did that. It’s really, really special and I hope the momentum continues.”
Bigham, after defeating compatriot Tanfield. said: “I want to beat Charlie and I’m sure he wants to beat me.
“We approach it very seriously – we’re not here to mess around. We want to win and I think that’s a really good mentality to have.”
Evans also won silver in the women’s team pursuit.
As reigning world and European champion, Finucane will go into this summer’s Olympics in Paris as the favourite in the women’s sprint.