Kenny happy to fly under radar again as build-up to the Olympics gathers pace
Six-times gold medallist is ready to get down to the serious business at Track World Championships
On the eve of the Rio Olympics four years ago Jason Kenny made a few headlines – something of a rarity where he is concerned – when he revealed that, despite his stunning Olympic success across eight years, he had no personal sponsors.
Kenny, who had three Olympic gold medals to his name at the time, was not overly upset about the situation.
He admitted he would “like to be paid more” but said he had learnt to accept his lot in life. “We’re in competition with all the pretty athletes, your Tom Daleys and people like that,” he told the BBC. “People I would never be able to compete with when it comes to, like, a marketing point of view...”
Harsh, but given he was, by his own admission, a quiet lad from Bolton who actively shunned the limelight, probably not entirely unfair.
At some point, though, your achievements surely get too big to be ignored, however cool you are with your lot. After Kenny’s exploits in Rio, where he defended his individual and team sprint titles, added the Olympic keirin crown for good measure, and became the joint most successful British Olympian of all time in terms of gold medals won, the 31-year-old must fall into that bracket.
There is a decent argument to be made that Kenny, who will be competing in the team sprint, the individual sprint and the keirin at the Track Cycling World Championships in Berlin this week, is the most underrated sportsman in Britain now. His total of six Olympic golds places him alongside Sir Chris Hoy at the top of the British pile.
And if that was not “marketable” enough, he also married Laura Trott, Britain’s golden girl and most successful female Olympian of all time, following the last Games. Together they have settled down in Cheshire with their two dogs and had a baby.
So, has the landscape changed? Are sponsors queuing round the block to back him now as he prepares for Tokyo? “Umm a little bit,” he says, smiling. “It’s up and down. But I’ve learnt to roll with it now.”
The truth is, Kenny would not have it any other way. He does actually have a few personal sponsors, including HSBC and Dreams, while he and Trott are due to announce an “exciting” new sponsor soon. But he would not want many more. Trott attracts more than enough sponsors for the both of them (“Oh yeah, way more. Trott has always done really well. She is obviously really appealing to that kind of market”) and he prefers to fly under the radar most of the time. The quiet life suits him.
Kenny is happy to focus on his training, his motorbike and his son Albie, now 2½, who will be joining his parents in Berlin this week.
Kenny says he does not know what to expect from this year’s worlds but, as ever, cautioned to not expect too much. The man accused by vanquished sprint rival Gregory Bauge at London 2012 of being “a sheep” between Games only to become “a tiger” when it got down to business, hinted the same thing could happen this year. “All right, I think, we will see,” Kenny replied when asked how he, Ryan Owens and Jack Carlin were going in training.
“We had a hit-out last Wednesday and it went OK. For us now, the challenge is, we just want to make sure we nail it technically in the team sprint. The Dutch have set a really high benchmark at the minute. It will be interesting to see what they can do. They are not going to be standing still.
“But we are going OK. Jack is going well at man two, which is important. The guy in the middle is important to
string the team together. We have had a few decent signs but it is just making sure we put our ride down on the day.
“[But] we try to hold back to the Games as best we can. That is the philosophy. Everything we are doing now is to put ourselves in the best position possible for the world champs. But as a team, it all comes together, hopefully, in five or six months’ time when it really matters.”
Win or lose, Kenny will not be getting too worked up. Whether it is Olympic medals, personal sponsors or the fact that every other British Olympian of similar stature has a knighthood, nothing bothers him too much. “We’ve been to the palace a few times collecting OBEs, MBEs and other bits and bobs,” he says of the lack of a knighthood. “We’ve had a good ride. I’m quite happy with the level that we are at and the level that I am at personally.
“We have a good life. We can’t complain about that. And I can do it relatively anonymously. I get the train into training a lot and it is quite nice to be able to do that, and just sit there and be normal for a bit.”
Do not expect Kenny to change – even if he and Trott add to their gold medal haul in Tokyo this year and they become Sir Jason and Dame Laura. The pair have only just got their medals up on a wall, having kept them in a drawer for years (“It’s quite nice, you can show people that come round if they want”). As for the future, he has given up trying to predict it.
“Leading up to Rio I was pretty much adamant I’d had enough and I was going to walk away. And I did walk away and didn’t do anything for a year. This time, it’s probably more likely to be my last but I am not as adamant this time that it will be. So I’m just kind of drifting along and going with the flow a little bit.”
‘I get the train into training a lot and it is nice to be able to do that, and sit there and be normal for a bit’