The Olympics have got me buzzing again
SIX-TIME OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALLIST ON HIS ROAD TO TOKYO 2020
IN the first in a series of regular columns from British Cycling’s Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls, based at the Manchester Velodrome, Farnworth’s six-time gold medallist Jason Kenny gives his insight on the road to Tokyo.
THERE is a buzz around the GB team at the moment, because we know Tokyo is just around the corner.
You certainly get a dip in those post-Olympic years, but the curve is certainly on the up now towards next year.
In previous years the Olympics have gone well for me, so you ride the wave for a while after that.
Then about two years out you hit rock bottom, you are kind of losing the will!
But then the Olympic build-up comes around again and sparks it all off – everyone starts to come back alive again and it all becomes a bit real.
You get a feeling in the team in the last year or so, and it is definitely the best time.
The whole buzz around the Olympics is the thing that I love. It is contagious. Once you catch that bug, you get carried away with it.
The difference for me this time around is that I am now a dad.
That has completely changed everything. It has changed my outlook for sure about sport.
When you are a young, single sportsman – which most are in this sport – you mainly think about yourself. It is quite a selfish existence really.
But now when our son Albie needs something, he is the priority for Laura and me. But you learn there are things you can soak up which you never thought you would be able to and crack on, because you have to. I have learnt a lot in that respect.
Being a dad is a really good distraction. It is easy to obsess about sport, but when you go home you can forget about it now and get on with family life.
It puts a bit of perspective on what I do. I remember someone telling me once ‘it’s just a bike race’ when I got a bit down after losing a race early in my career – and they were right, it is just a bike race, although in terms of the Olympics it is a big bike race!
It is helpful both Laura and I are in the sport as we know what each other is going through, but in some ways it would be more helpful if only one of us were doing the sport. It is a tricky balance. We have a rule that if one of us is travelling, the other stays at home with Albie, but if we go together to a competition he comes with us, which is obviously a challenge in itself.
It can be a bit ‘pass the parcel’ sometimes with our race calendars and training. Laura and I can be like ships passing in the night. Later in the year there is a time when I go away racing and as I get back Laura goes away on a training camp, we almost pass at the airport! The plan is to take Albie to Tokyo if we make it. Laura and I will be in the
Jason Kenny
Olympic Village, so he won’t be able to stay with us there. It will be the first time we won’t actually be staying with him, but hopefully it will all be worth it in the end.
We are lucky, we have two sets of grandparents who don’t work and a strong support network at home.
Over the past few Olympics we have had a really successful time in terms of cycling.
And this is set to be a strong GB squad again. We don’t really feel the pressure of previous successes, we all have our heads down and this is the best time to be in the squad, everyone is fully focused and have fixed dates when things have to be done by.
There isn’t really time to start worrying about expectations for next year, we all have our own things to get on with.
And when you look back at the success we have had down the years, the Manchester Velodrome has played a key role.
I started cycling there. Having a facility like that casts the net in the local area for the potential talent to come and get stuck in to come racing. And that’s what I did. I owe my whole career to it.
It has become the hub for the whole of cycling in the UK, it’s the birthplace of the sport in this country for the modern era.
I was massively lucky. I had not been cycling a year when the London Olympics got announced and British Cycling got a load of funding.
I was 24 in London so was on the radar right away. Before that, there wasn’t much talent ID going on and certainly not a structured system that I have been through. I would have struggled to do it all without that.
Next year will be my fourth Olympics, and I am not planning anything past Tokyo.
I will just have to see how it goes and how I feel after it. I learnt last time not to make a decision too early.
Last time I made the decision in the January even before the Games the finish, I felt like I had had enough.
But by that time I had done all the hard work so wasn’t going to bail out then.
But a year later I drifted back into it. So this time I will go with the flow and see what happens.