Our bumpy ride to the altar
The kiss that blew their cover. The woman who put a spoke in their wheels. And the disasters that dogged their wedding day. With a gold medal for honesty, Olympic cycle stars Laura Trott and Jason Kenny tell the oh-so enchanting story of...
THEIR romance captivated the nation against the backdrop of the Rio Olympics, with millions seeing the tender kiss they shared after winning golds within 90 minutes of each other.
Cycling heroes Laura Trott and Jason Kenny – who picked up five golds between them – then returned from Brazil to their modest home life… and an impending wedding.
Now, in their own frank, entertaining and self-effacing words, they take turns to describe how love blossomed, and the haphazard planning leading up to their big day.
Their story begins in Rio, before Jason takes part in the keirin event that would provide one of the most dramatic moments of the Games...
ON THE BRINK OF DISASTER
LAURA: I’m happy, but I can’t relax. These Olympics are over for me, but they’re not over for us. I won a gold medal in the team pursuit three days ago and a gold in the omnium less than an hour ago.
Four finals down, four gold medals [Jason had also won in the men’s team and individual sprints], and one final to go: the keirin. Jason against five other riders. Jason, my partner for more than four years now, the man I am due to walk down the aisle with in a few weeks, my housemate, my best friend.
One more win for a perfect Olympics. One more race and we can at last sleep in the same bed again.
JASON: Laura gets more anxious about my races than I do. There are nearly 12million people watching all this live on television back in the UK. BBC1 has delayed the Ten O’Clock News. I might be the calmest man in Rio. I have planned how to race this final, and I know I have the speed to make my tactics work.
We all follow the derny, the electric motorbike that controls the pace for the first six-and-a-half laps before leaving us to fight it out.
Bang! The restart gun has fired. Gasps all around. A rider has gone past the rear wheel of the derny before we are meant to.
LAURA: C**p. A cold flush in my guts, because from where I’m standing, it looks horribly close to Jason crossing the derny’s back wheel. If it is him he’ll be disqualified.
I’m watching the replay from inside the track. I don’t want to watch it any longer. I just want to know what’s happening. Our head coach Iain Dyer is telling the chief commissaire, an official from Germany called Alex Donike, that it’s much too tight to be able to justify disqualifying anyone. I’m staring at the pair of them. Donike nods. Iain nods too. Thank God. Jason’s safe. He’s in.
JASON: My target had always been the team sprint, because that was winning gold with my friends. The solo sprint was a beautiful bonus. Winning the keirin gold is the most delightful surprise on top of that already beautiful feeling.
LAURA: After he wins, the first thing Jason says to me is: ‘Why are you crying?’ So British. So male.
JASON: The day before, I had been a five-time Olympic champion. Now that I am a six-time Olympic champion, it’s like someone has flicked a switch. After a lifetime of carefully constructed anonymity, suddenly hundreds of people want pictures, autographs and selfies.
A BICYCLE MADE FOR TWO...
LAURA: It all began that Christmas after the Beijing Olympics, sitting at my parents’ house in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, flicking through a copy of Dad’s Cycling Weekly. And there was Jason, 20 years old. I looked at his picture and thought: ‘That could be me come London 2012.’ I didn’t fancy him. He was nothing like my type, which, given I was 16, was all about boy bands – tall, skinny, big hair. Not massive legs, hair that his mum cut, and a hairy chest poking through his jersey.
It wasn’t until 2010 that I got on to the senior squad, and it wasn’t until the following year that I actually met him. I shouldn’t have bothered.
From Jason, I got nothing. I just assumed he was unsociable, because it wasn’t only me he wouldn’t speak to. None of the girls I ended up hanging around with spoke to him either.
Only when the World Championships came around in Melbourne in spring 2012 did we find ourselves staying in the same hotel again and racing on the same track.
I broke his headphones. Jason didn’t even mention it. And then a little thought popped up in my head: he doesn’t take himself or his headphones too seriously. I like that.
JASON: I wasn’t actually a grumpy old man who people didn’t talk to. I just came across that way and, to be honest, it rather suited me; it kept people away until I was ready to talk to them. As I’m a little shy, that can take quite some time.
The thing about the broken head- phones is that now we had a reason to talk – and when we talked, I realised I actually enjoyed it.
Soon we had each other’s numbers. It was easy to keep in touch – it became part of the day to drop each other a few texts. And then a lot of texts. It was still Laura who was doing most of the running. It was certainly Laura who was doing the majority of the talking. Once I’d had a 10,000-word breakdown about her day, we would then have a ten-word breakdown on mine.
LAURA: I noticed him more and more, mostly because he was driving a very nice sporty white Jag. Not bad for a 24-year-old, I thought. And then one night we bumped into each other at the cycling academy flats, and I mentioned I didn’t have anything in for dinner, and he was in the same boat. We looked at each other and said: ‘Why don’t we go to get something?’
Downstairs to the street, looking forward to my ride in the Jag. There is no Jag. Instead Jason gets into the worst car I’ve ever seen. It looked like something you’d see being towed to a scrapyard. And it stank. It stank of old men.
JASON: There was a little surprise around the velodrome as news about our relationship gradually leaked out, and that made sense, because it was the track-squad version of an office romance.
The only person who seemed to think it was an issue was our fellow cyclist Vicky Pendleton. When she had started a relationship with the British team’s sports scientist Scott Gardner before London it had led to him losing his job, at least until he was later reinstated.
Laura and I hadn’t crossed any boundaries [because although relationships between riders and staff were prohibited, riders were allowed to date]. And even Vicky apologised later for what she said.
We understood there would be certain standards we would have to live by. There could be no holding hands walking through airports while on team trips. We would not be rooming together. We would get no special treatment. I was fine with that.
A HELPING HAND FROM HARRY
LAURA: After we won four gold medals between us at our home
Olympics in 2012 we used our success to catch as much of the other action as we could.
While Jason was floating around the Olympic Village, he was asked if he wanted to go to the beach volleyball with Prince Harry, who was attending anyway and wanted to sit with some British gold medallists.
He did rather get given the impression that there would be 20 or so of us there. Instead it was just Jason, me and a very, very posh rower.
And suddenly Prince Harry was there. He just sat down and introduced himself. ‘Hello, I’m Harry.’ It probably wasn’t strictly necessary, but he was so normal that it seemed perfectly natural.
We offered him a beer, but he pointed out a row of photographers and explained that he couldn’t. He also warned us that we should be careful, which was when I handed him a beer I couldn’t open and asked him if he could sort it out.
No problem. He held the bottle by the back of the chair in front and slammed it down. Off flew the lid, straight at a woman sitting a few seats along. We tried to keep a straight face, but we all knew what had happened. Sorry, Harry. We were certainly enjoying ourselves. Jason asked me if I knew how the volleyball scoring worked. ‘Not a clue. Jason, I wonder if the old Prince will know.’ The old Prince!
He heard me, too; of course he did. ‘You two are hilarious. And you’re a nightmare…’
Harry said his farewells, still without a beer. That was when David Beckham walked in. OK. Play it cool. David Beckham’s sitting on the row in front of us.
A sandwich suddenly appeared from somewhere. Would we like it? We’re professional athletes. We’ve just won a load of Olympic gold medals. We can’t go eating food we can’t trust – anything could be in it. We put the sandwich down.
David Beckham turned around. ‘My security guard has just bought it,’ he said. Right, it’s had the Beckham seal of approval, we’ve been riding our backsides off for the last few days, we’ve had some beers – the sandwich gets it.
Under the lights, Olympic champions, so happy to be together. A kiss, a cuddle, a bigger kiss. We should have listened to Prince Harry.
JASON: The next morning Laura woke up to a series of texts from her agent. ‘Laura, what the hell?’ ‘Laura, Google yourself.’ In all the newspapers were half-page photos of the two of us kissing like teenagers at a bus stop, David Beckham in the foreground.
In the aftermath of all that had happened in the velodrome, everyone we met wanted to see our medals. It was a very natural thing for
supporters and spectators to do. We felt differently about them. It wasn’t about the medals for us. It was what they represented: all those hundreds of hours of training, the thousands of hours of work from coaches and support staff, the tens of thousands of laps around velodromes across the world.
We have had the police round, asking about how we store them, telling us how valuable they are.
I thought: ‘Well, they are valuable, but only to us.’
AND THE BIGGEST DECISION OF ALL
LAURA: It didn’t take long until we weren’t looking at our medals any more.
Mine were given to my Mum. Although they were safe, she soon didn’t have a clue where they were either. It wasn’t as if you wanted to take them out at Christmas and stare at them. Only when we have kids can I imagine taking them out of storage.
JASON: After coming through the hurricane that was London 2012, after surviving the hard times and happiness that had followed it, we knew we wanted to get married.
We hadn’t discussed when, and we hadn’t talked about the how, but we knew we worked together.
If Laura hadn’t given me an incredibly detailed description of exactly the sort of thing she wanted I might have been in trouble. Instead I was able stroll in to a jeweller and be specific: ‘A halo engagement ring, please, with a circle of little diamonds around a larger one in the middle.’ During an episode of EastEnders one night I suddenly decided that this was the moment: ‘Will you marry me?’
Laura barely paused. ‘Yes.’ She didn’t believe I had a ring, so when I fished it out and presented it to her, at last EastEnders was put on pause. And the tears began to flow.
In Rio, men and women were not allowed to share apartments, no matter if they had been going out for four years, no matter if they were getting married a month after getting back to Britain. Instead, Laura and I had apartments opposite each other.
Neither of us minded and with Laura’s penchant for talking in her sleep when anxious I was sparing myself considerable earache.
Her language during nightmares can be atrocious. She can suddenly sit bolt upright and shout: ‘I don’t want to paint the f***ing ceiling!’ Or ‘F***ing Chris!’
Which Chris? In the morning she would never know.
LAURA: I kept my apartment like an icebox, partly because I could sleep better wrapped up in a duvet and partly because I was so terrified of catching the Zika virus. Because of that I also put up a mosquito net in a dome over the bed. It was over the top in more ways than one. No wonder Jason didn’t want to stay over.
JASON: After our final race, trying to sleep in Laura’s single bed, it took all my core strength not to roll off on to the floor.
Halfway through the night I cracked and went back to my own room. Back to put one last gold medal into the pants drawer.
A BUCKET SEAT WEDDING
JASON: Our wedding date was set, the invitations had been sent out months ago.
We had turned down an offer from a magazine that would have paid for five weddings – 20 if we’d stuck to my budget – because we wanted to keep the occasion for us, our family and our friends.
The money would have been forgotten in a few years; the day never would be. Saturday, September 24 – a day we had been looking forward to for more than 18 months, a moment we had been thinking about for much longer.
LAURA: There weren’t going to be many presents. We had asked instead for donations to be made to the charity Dementia UK. My nan had suffered from the disease, and Jason’s nan was still battling it.
JASON: With half an hour to go, standing outside St Alban’s church in Macclesfield, I began to realise the gaps that my laid-back approach to life had left. I hadn’t organised ushers. Laura’s uncle, an obvious Trott, thankfully knew the score and got on the case.
I had wanted to drive ourselves to the reception at Hilltop Country House. Laura had agreed, and I was going to hire a Morgan but – surprise, surprise – had never got around to it.
At the last minute, a local company stepped in and offered to lend us a car instead. I appeared in a bright green Lamborghini Huracan.
LAURA: It was the most uncomfortable car I’ve ever sat in. You try getting in and out of a bucket seat wearing a one-off wedding dress. I had already put my foot through the front of it trying to squeeze into the car. I took it in good humour, I’ve been assured.
JASON: Afternoon tea was served from the back of a pink VW camper- van. A fair number of Olympic gold medals were represented: Chris Hoy, Jo Rowsell, Dani King, Philip Hindes, Callum Skinner, Katie Archibald.
We wanted everyone to be able to let their hair down, which made it all the more surprising when Laura stopped it all to show a video on the projector screen of an artist telling the story of our relationship through the medium of sand. Not a staple of weddings for lads from Bolton.
LAURA: It was supposed to be cute, our love story told in a different way. I think it went down well with the older guests, anyway.
That was the theme of the day: half-planned, half-winged.
Our dogs Pringle and Sprolo were dropped off with us before midnight, and we took them up to our room. A perfect day, and a perfect ending.
Taken from The Inside Track, by Jason Kenny and Laura Trott, published on Thursday by Michael O’Mara Books, priced £20. To order your copy for £15 with free p&p, visit www.mailbookshop.co.uk or call 0844 571 0640 by November 20.