Golden Kenny unmoved by British star status
RIO DE JANEIRO: Jason Kenny said he felt no different after joining the “five gold medal club” and closing in on British cycling legend Chris Hoy’s national best six Olympic titles.
Kenny proved he was the boss in the current British team, beating room- mate Callum Skinner to retain his Olympic sprint title in Rio on Sunday.
Having also won team sprint gold on Thursday he matched fellow cyclist Bradley Wiggins and former rower Steve Redgrave in second on the all-time British list.
“That’s a nice club to be a part of, the five gold medal club,” said Kenny.
“I’ll just keep my head down now and concentrate on the keirin, and try not to think about anything else.”
The difference between threetime and five- time Olympic champion was lost on Ken ny.
“It does feel strange because people keep saying to me I’ve won five now, but I don’t feel any different to the other day when I only had three,” he joked.
Should he add keirin gold to his sizeable collection on Tuesday, he would match Hoy’s Olympic marks in every sense, earning a sixth title, seventh medal and equalling the three gold medals from a single Games that Hoy did in Beijing in 2008.
But he’s not a lways been successful in that event, despite winning the world title in 2013.
“I’m really hit and miss in the keirin. I wouldn’t be surprised if... I could win it, I could medal but I could also go out in the fi rst round,” said Kenny.
He won the fi rst two legs of the sprint final to dominate his teammate, just as Hoy had done to him in Beijing in 2008.
Despite sharing a room the night before racing each other for the gold medal, Kenny said nothing was out of the ordinary in his relationship with Skinner on Saturday night.
“(We did) just the same thing we always do: went to dinner, went to bed, got up, had breakfast, had lunch, it’s really boring.
“We’re team-mates, we’ve raced each other a thousand times, what we do at the track has no bearing on anything at home.
“Everyone jokes about it but other than that it doesn’t make any difference.”
Asked what they’d talked about, Kenny said they’d been discussing the other British medal hopefuls.
“Anything and everything. Heptathlon, Greg Rutherford, everything that everyone else is talking about. Andy Murray.” — AFP