In Tokyo 2020, Fin won silver medals in both the track individual pursuit and the road race. At the Paris 2024 Paralympics, Fin bagged another silver medal in the individual pursuit but upgraded in the road race, claiming his first Paralympic gold.
Where it all began
Spending the first eight years of his life in the Borders near Glentress then moving up north to the Highlands, Fin was always surrounded by great cycling tracks and discovered his passion for the sport at a young age.
“Before me and my brother could ride by ourselves, we'd go along with our parents, and they would take turns looking after us whilst the other would go and ride,” he told us.
“As we got older the sibling rivalry kicked in to see who could do the biggest jump? Who can go downhill the fastest? And who could scare Mum the most?”
Fin’s passion didn’t stop at cycling.
“My mum always tells a story from when I was about 3 or 4, there was a Tim Henman game on at Wimbledon and I just sat in front of the TV for the entire match and didn't move, completely engrossed.
“I think that illustrates how obsessed I was with sport.”
Family influence and para sport
Family has played a huge part in Fin’s journey, always encouraging him to try new things and never let his disability get in the way.
“I was pretty lucky in the sense that I grew up and my parents never let me see my disability as something preventing me from taking part.
“Their attitude was very much like if you want to go play football, rugby, swimming or gymnastics, you can, and I never found anything that I wasn't able to do.”
Fin shares that he always knew he wanted to be a professional cyclist and recalls a conversation he had with his school’s careers advisor.
“When she asked what I wanted to do after school I told her I was going to be a professional cyclist.
“She said, ‘you realise that only a handful of people actually achieve that’ and I responded ‘yeah, but I'm going to be one of them’.”
Up until he was 17, Fin raced against able-bodied athletes on the mountain bike and had never considered para-sport as a route for him.
“Every sport that I was doing was all against able-bodied people and I think that's just because of how I was brought up – I didn’t see myself as different so there’s no reason why I shouldn’t be racing the people I was.”
Leaving school in the same summer as the 2016 Rio Games, Fin watched some of the Paralympic events and started to see that maybe it could be an option for him. Reflecting on that period, Fin shares that he had no idea how to get into para sport or if he would be classifiable.
“I ended up just sending an email directly the British Cycling, asking what I needed to do to get on the squad and they came back with information on talent ID days.
Shortly after, Fin made the journey from the Scottish Highlands to Derby to do power testing on a stationary bike which measures your cycling power output. He was then invited to join the Great Britain Cycling Team development programme.
Defining moments
At the end of 2018, Fin moved his life down to Manchester – the home of British Cycling’s headquarters. By that point he had already won his first national title and in 2019 he won his first World Cup.
Fin made his Paralympic debut at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games (held in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic). He won silver medals in the men's road race C1-3 and the men's C3 3000m individual pursuit, but it was closer to home that Fin celebrates as one of his best career moments.
“Winning in Glasgow at the 2023 World Championships was outrageous. I went into it thinking if I could win one race then I'd want it to be the individual pursuit and thankfully I was able to able to do that.”
“Taking the Scotland flag off my parents after winning and riding around the track, the crowd went even noisier when that happened and it’s a moment I'll never forget.”
This summer, Fin returned for his second Paralympics this time upgrading his road race silver to a gold.
“I didn't want to go home without a gold so to do that in the way that I did it in the road race made it even more special,” he told us.
“I had gone out to Paris a few months beforehand to do the road race course, and I remember asking my coaches where the finish line would be and riding across it with my hands in the air, visualising winning it in a few months’ time.”
Reflecting on the lead up to that race, Fin shared that he had envisioned how the race would pan out the night before.
“The last few 100 metres happened exactly as I thought it was going to… following that exact French rider round the final corner and sprinting past him to win.”
“I was never not winning that race.”
Future goals
The wheels keep turning for Fin as he prepares for Strathpuffer on the 11 and 12 January 2025 - the legendary 24-hour mountain-bike endurance event is held every year in the Highlands of Scotland in the middle of winter.
“I'm doing that with a few teammates. I did it solo when I was 15 or 16, so I was riding for the 24 hours, but 17 hours were in darkness. I think I've just forgotten how hard it is, so I've signed up to do it again.
“After that I’ll be getting back into the kind of racing that we're normally doing on the road and track with LA being the target in four years time.”
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