Olympic cycling ace Dame Laura: I’m retiring for sake of family
BRITAIN’S most successful female Olympian Dame Laura Kenny announced her retirement from cycling yesterday.
The 31-year- old was expected to compete at the Paris Games this summer but has decided not to sacrifice spending time with her young family.
The mother- of-two, who has won five Olympic gold medals and is a seven-time world champion, said it was ‘the right time’ to leave the sport. She added: ‘I have had an absolute blast, but now is the time for me to hang that bike up.’
Dame Laura returned to cycling after the birth of her first son with husband and fellow cyclist Sir Jason Kenny, 35, – Britain’s most decorated Olympian – in 2017.
But she has felt increasingly conflicted about being away from home since the couple’s second son, Monty, was born in July.
The athlete told BBC Breakfast: ‘The sacrifices of leaving the children and your family at home is really quite big and it really is a big decision that you have to make… People [were] asking me what races was I doing, what training camps was I going on – I didn’t want to go, ultimately, and that’s what it came down to.’
Aged 18, Dame Laura was part of the British team pursuit squad that won European gold in 2010. At the 2012 London Olympics, she won gold in team pursuit and omnium. She retained both titles at the 2016 Rio Games and claimed a madison gold at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. She is the first British woman to have won a gold medal at three consecutive Olympics and the most successful female cyclist in the history of the Games.
She still hopes to be at the Paris Olympics ‘in some capacity’ and to stay involved with the GB cycling team. Stephen Park, the performance director of British Cycling, hailed her as ‘one of the greatest sporting talents our country has ever produced’.