Squamish mountain bikers managed to secure some big wins at the Canada Summer Games earlier this month.
In the Men’s relay race, Team BC started out in third with Rhys Verner of Squamish keeping pace with the individual gold and silver medalists from Team Quebec and Team Ontario.
Holden Jones, also from Squamish, took over for the second leg, gaining and passing the rider from Team Ontario.
When he tagged off with Sean Fincham, who – you guessed it – is also a Squamish rider, Team Quebec had a 14-second lead over Team BC.
“I thought, ‘Oh no, I have a gap to close,’” he said in a news release. “I was a little worried – it was a pretty big gap to close especially on a course like this where it is really close racing. But I thought I can do this and worked on sections and tried to pick up a few seconds on each section.”
The determined look on Fincham’s face when he headed out on the course told the story as he slowly narrowed the gap.
His teammates came out to the top of the climb to join family and friends cheering and adding some extra motivation.
“It was definitely extra motivation for me going up those hills,” Fincham said.
Fincham finally passed Team Quebec on the last turn before the sprint to the finish where he crossed the line for gold and the three friends from Squamish celebrated their win.
“It feels good to win with the team because they have all put in an awesome effort and to be able to close it feels really good,” he said.
In a separate race, Verner also managed to clinch gold in the mountain bike sprint.
