Active during register, says Kenny

voice, and experiences, to inspire positive change.

“It upsets me, especially around children – and I just think there are such small lifestyle things you can change, like walking to school, walking to the shop, that can have a huge health benefit,” she says.

“What I know personally is the way it makes me feel when I go out and ride my bike. I get something that I call the ‘rest-day feeling’. I have a day off and feel groggy because I am sat indoors doing nothing and yet I feel so much better even if I have cycled to a cafe on a rest day. It gives you head space, time to think.”

The importance of exercise is an issue that Kenny can relate to on several levels. At 27, her memories of school sport remain vivid and, having also become a mum to son Albie almost two years ago, she is very conscious of the challenges that surround staying active both during and after pregnancy.

She is also now working with Team GB to help lead an annual campaign every August Bank Holiday weekend at what is being called the nation’s biggest sports day when thousands of free activities will be put on across the country to encourage friends and families to get active. It is a timely initiative. Sport England’s Active Lives survey last year highlighted alarming inactivity, especially among young girls, with only 14 per cent meeting the chief medical officer’s minimum activity recommendations. The Telegraph launched its “Girls, Inspired” campaign to tackle that gender gap

‘Small things can be changed. Walking to school or to the shop can have a huge health benefit’

and the wider inactivity earlier this year and the Government will today publish its School Sport and Activity Action Plan.

Kenny is well aware that the later years at secondary school are a particular problem for girls and smiles as she acknowledges her own experience of physical education and “writing notes to come up with the best excuse to say, ‘I don’t want to do it’.” The key, she says, is providing choice that extends beyond traditional sports, giving girls the option to get involved in single-sex groups and fostering a fun environment in which friendships are built. “I think the key is doing different things,” she says. “Dance class was one of the most popular for girls. Yoga and pilates are becoming much more popular. We had kick-boxing – I remember that being a hit with girls. I got involved in as many sports as I could but I always say the 14- or 15-year-old girls is the hardest age.

“If you have the experience at a young age you have more chance of staying in it.”

Kenny also believes that making time to exercise was important for her in the months after Albie was born. “We are lucky to have parents who help but the worst thing was feeling guilty,” she says. “A feeling like you shouldn’t go and have time to yourself but I would say the same thing to any mum or parent who asked me. Yes, it was hard but it made me a better mum because there are lots of stresses about being a first-time mum.”

That activity soon increased to the point where she is back approaching her best in readiness for the Olympics next year when she hopes to ride the madison as well as defend the team pursuit and omnium titles she won both in London and Rio de Janeiro. Kenny thinks that it took until earlier this year before she “felt like me again” in terms of her athletic level but, like Lizzie Deignan, is proving that it is possible to combine being a mum with elite sport.

“I was always adamant I would start again, that I wasn’t retiring and I didn’t want it to end my career and that somehow we would make it work. Why should we let it end our careers?”

Kenny stresses that her ambition next month will be to inspire those people who might never have been active. “You get people where it is not part of their day-to-day routine and they are the people we are trying to focus on. To me, it is a start. If one person goes out and takes up a sport, something they do forever, that will be worth it.”

Laura Kenny was speaking on behalf of Toyota, Presenting Partner of I Am Team GB, The Nation’s Biggest Sports Day on Saturday Aug 24, 2019 www.iamteamgb.com