Fintan Conway has arrived in Tamworth for the Cycling Festival in the midst of powerful experiences that are shaping him, as he tries to segue from a youth talent to a professional athlete while making sure he has something to fall back on if that doesn’t pan out.
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The 19-year-old moved from Scone to Canberra at the start of the year to ride for Oliver’s Real Food Racing, a Continental team on the Union Cycliste Internationale Oceania Tour. He was plucked from the Hunter District Cycling Club.
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The move to Canberra also included him beginning university, and starting work at an after-school care centre.
He decided to leave the Australian National University, where he had studied statistics and economics, and plans to start a degree in primary education at the University of Canberra next year.
If you suspect he was suffering from overload, he was. “Definitely,” he answered when asked if it was too much. “Especially the first semester. I was going hard on the uni and trying to train and go to races and still earn some money. Yeah, it was pretty hard to juggle [everything].”
Conway, the reigning ACT under-23 road race champion, will compete in three events at the inaugural Tamworth Cycling Festival – the hill climb (Treloar Park to the top of Oxley Lookout) on Saturday morning, the CBD criterium on Saturday afternoon and the 100-kilometre Nemingha to Nundle handicap road race on Sunday morning.
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It will be the third time he has contested the Nemingha to Nundle, and he will be going for his first win in the event, starting from scratch.
“I might look for an opportunity to get away,” he said. “But if it’s looking like coming back for a sprint [finish], I’d definitely be working for [teammate] Kai [Chapman].”
As with his life in general, Conway is going through a steep cycling learning curve. This year he debuted in the National Road Series, at Tweed Heads last month, after competing overseas for the first time, in a three-day tour of Sri Lanka.
“It was stinking hot,” he said of the Sri Lankan tour. “It was an awesome experience. It was great to experience that style of racing over there.” He added: “Cycling, it’s really starting to spread across the world. It gives you insane opportunities.”
