I’m not going to be a pushy parent...
Multiple gold medal-winning cyclist Laura Kenny is excited about motherhood. But, as she tells LISA SALMON, it won’t stop her from defending her titles at the next Olympics
AFTER becoming the most successful female track cyclist in Olympic history, Laura Kenny is seeking a new challenge. The four-time Olympic champion is aiming for more cycling golds at the Tokyo 2020 Games after she has her first baby with fellow Olympian husband Jason Kenny, this summer.
Despite saying after the last Olympics that she didn’t want to juggle children with her cycling career, the golden girl is now looking forward to doing just that.
The excited mum-to-be says her pregnancy “wasn’t a plan as such”, but explains: “Both me and Jason had decided we wanted children, and I’d also decided that I wanted to go to at least one more Olympics if I could, so we thought this would be the year to do it if we were going to do it.”
Laura, nee Trott, 24, who married six-time Olympic gold medal cyclist Jason, 29, last September, is now 22 weeks pregnant. The Kennys know the sex of their baby, but are keeping it quiet.
But is Laura hoping her son or daughter will eventually follow in its parents’ golden Olympic footsteps?
She’s already hinted at such aspirations, tweeting during the last Olympics: ‘I love him to bits @JasonKenny107! Our kids have to get some of these genes right?’
For now, she says: “Me and Jason do lead quite active lifestyles, and I know how much we’ve enjoyed cycling. I’d love it if our kids enjoyed it as well.”
The seven-time World Champion cyclist has had no morning sickness, and cheerfully reveals she’s simply “carrying on life as normal”, remaining very active by cycling up to two hours a day on the bike in her garage, going to the gym and swimming. “We’ve tailored everything back a lot, so I’m not doing anything 100% and I’m not going at anything full gas,” she explains. She stops when she wants to at the gym, and admits: “If I feel like I’ve had enough, then I can it. It’s never really about finishing a session, it’s just about keeping active. “I didn’t want to put my body in complete shock. Obviously, I’ve never grown a child before, and I didn’t want to stop what I’d always known.”
Laura says she wants to keep active for as long as possible before her baby arrives, but she has no idea, of course, when she’ll get back into training after the birth.
“I want to start again