AURA KENNY
Husband and wife are back for Britain.. Jason grabs a silver while Laura will go for glory just six months after giving birth
JASON KENNY was forced to settle for a silver medal on his world championship comeback – but hope springs maternal for his missus.
Six-times Olympic champion Kenny, Jack Carlin and Ryan Owens were outgunned in Apeldoorn by host nation Holland in the team sprint final at the UCI cycling world championships.
Although Carlin posted a red-hot first lap of 17.1sec, anchorman Kenny was left with 0.2sec to make up in the last 250m – and it proved too much.
But as Britain’s blazing saddles banked their first medal, queen of the track Laura Kenny (right) returned to elite competition as if she had never been away.
Just six months after giving birth to baby son Albie, the former Miss Trott made a happy creche-landing. Together with Elinor Barker, Emily Nelson and Katie Archibald, Kenny qualified second fastest for today’s women’s team pursuit finals and tweeted: “Absolutely loved being back!”
Although the Brits clocked 4min 19.177sec, marginally behind defending world champions the United States, they were ahead on the time splits until the last kilometre.
Preserving energy for today’s potential medal ride, the fourtime Olympic gold medallist – going for her eighth rainbow jersey on the Dutch track where she won her first – sat up on the final lap.
Before heading back to the family apartment where little Albie has become the youngest member of Britain’s entourage, Kenny said on Twitter: “Felt like I was back at my first worlds all over again... nervous/ excited and everything else in between.” She has been mentored, in the art of regaining peak performance as a full-time sporting mum, by heptathlon golden girl Jessica Ennis-Hill. Kenny was back on the turbo bike within six weeks of becoming a mother last August and has recovered her form quicker than expected after converting the garage at home into a gym. Great Britain endurance coach Paul Manning said: “I wouldn’t say Laura felt good (when she got off the bike) – but reassured and happy.
“It was an impressive performance at that level. That team hasn’t spent much time together. For Laura, expectations are modified for the moment – but not for long.”
Britain’s team pursuit men were bang on the money, too, qualifying fastest with three-time Olympic champion Ed Clancy, Charlie Tanfield, Ethan Hayter and Kian Emadi clocking an impressive 3min 55.714sec.
And the Olympic champions breezed into today’s gold medal ride against Denmark after destroying the Germans in the first round.
Archibald finished a creditable sixth in the women’s scratch race as Holland’s Kirsten Wild claimed the first rainbow jersey of the five-day meet.