Finlay Holland is an U16 rider racing for Beeston Cycling Club. 
Finlay competes in road, track and cyclocross events both regionally and nationally. 

Finlay’s foray into cycling started when he was 9 his dad Paul would take him out cycling and it was then he showed a great keenness for the sport. Finlay was lucky enough to be given some coaching at his primary school through Go-ride events.

All sports led back to cycling
Finlay developed an interest in cyclocross and started to get coaching through his school and local club Nottingham Clarion. In his first two seasons he enjoyed competing and put in some great early performances in the Notts and Derby CX league. During these early years he then got the opportunity to experience track racing through the club cluster sessions at the Derby Velodrome and it is understatement to say he was hooked.

Finlay explored many other sporting opportunities in his quest to find his sporting niche and he launched himself into canoeing, fencing, explorers and the Duke of Edinburgh Award. Finlay rediscovered cycling and focused on that sport for his GCSE PE. Socially he had always enjoyed cycling and continued riding with his dad and showed great ability and determination when he cycled his first 100 mile ride at 11 years old.

Taking the first step to realising a vision
By chance a phone call to John McCay of Beeston Cycling Club to enquire about membership and youth cycling opportunities it became clear that the club had aspirations to develop a youth development programme. With that vision Finlay joined as its first recruit to represent BCC competitively. 

In these early stages RizkMcCay confirmed extra sponsorship to help get the vision started. During that season the club with parents John Pearson and Richard Shenton started to discuss with John the foundations of BCC’s Youth Development Programme. They also started to collaborated with Bryan Steel to help set up an academy and thus the foundations were in place.

Determination to push through and succeed
It all started to fall into place and with some good like minded individuals gave Finlay the enthusiasm and motivation to regain his mojo. As with most developing racers there were some difficult and testing early road races at Stockport, Milton Keynes, Curborough, Yarborough and Mallory, but with sheer determination steady progress was made throughout the season.

Supporting the road season Finlay increased his bug for the track and completed his accreditation in May 2019. With focussed training on the track throughout the summer Finlay was ready to race in the Derby Youth Track League in the autumn which was good experience and progress was being made with each race.
A successful team pursuit event at the velodrome resulted in
a 4th place and earned him a trip to Lee Valley in December
and the opportunity to compete and test himself against a much stronger field.

Aiming high and a strong belief to achieve
Finlay found a real focus in cycling and is driven to train, educate and fix bikes as part of his repertoire. He has a place at the Derby college to pursue a Sports course with links to the Huub Ribble Junior Performance Academy starting in September 2020 with an aim to be professional cyclist... he hopes. 

With Covid19 gripping the country Finlay is actively training smart, and in regular contact with the club, Bryan Steel and his team mates. 

Finlay and his team mates remain very positive and their supportive training programme at home is serving them well to hone their fitness and enable them to seize successes when competitive racing finally starts again.