Kennys find silver lining as track dominance ends
LAURA and Jason Kenny were forced to settle for silver medals at the Tokyo Olympics as Great Britain’s crown slipped in the velodrome.
After a decade of British dominance in track cycling, a world record-breaking German team beat Laura Kenny and the women’s team pursuit squad into silver, while her husband and the men’s sprint trio were defeated by the Netherlands in their final.
Laura Kenny had won gold in every Olympic event she previously entered but Britain looked second best to Germany in qualifying on Monday and it had not changed 24 hours later.
Although the two teams looked relatively closely matched in the early rounds, both breaking the world record in their first outing, Germany dominated the final, clocking four minutes 04.249 seconds to see off their rivals by more than six seconds.
British celebrations for the world record they set in the first round had
been cut short when Katie Archibald crashed into Neah Evans at the finish, both left with scars they insisted did not lead to a slower time in the final.
‘As an athlete, you want to win everything,’ said 29-year-old Kenny, who has further medal chances in the Madison and the omnium.
‘We set our hearts on gold, we wanted to win gold, so yeah we are going to feel disappointed. I glimpsed at my phone and so many people are saying, “You should be really proud of silver”, and I am really proud of silver, I just do feel a bit disappointed.
‘Germany were phenomenal, you can’t take anything away from them. That is incredible, that’s going to be a record that stands for a long time.’
Like his wife, Jason missed the first of three chances to move clear of Sir Chris Hoy’s tally of Olympic golds but men’s team sprint silver did make him Britain’s most decorated Olympian.
An eighth medal ties 33-year-old Kenny with Sir Bradley Wiggins but his six golds put him clear. However Kenny, Jack Carlin and Ryan Owens were second best in Tokyo as the Dutch set an Olympic record 41.369sec.
With the British riders struggling to hold one another’s wheels they finished three seconds down on the Dutch, who have not been beaten in a team sprint event since 2017.
Britain had clocked 41.829 in the first round but the fight to earn a place in the gold-medal race took its toll against a squad able to substitute in a fourth rider between rounds.
‘We came and emptied the tanks,’ said Kenny, who still has Friday’s individual sprint and Sunday’s keirin to come. ‘We pretty much nailed it in the first round and then we rolled the dice and went after the win.
‘It didn’t go our way but they were better than us. We knew we had to get better in the past few years. We have improved a lot but it was not enough.’