Golden couple living ‘good life’ – who needs honours?

Only one prize is now missing for Laura and Jason Kenny, the first couple of sport who have 12 Olympic titles between them: the inevitable damehood and knighthood.

Following a gold apiece in Tokyo, and now confirmed as Britain’s most successful male and female Olympians, that will arrive in due course. But, while the medals may sit comfortably for the Kennys, they are so far from flashy they would sooner swim back from Japan than put on airs. Posh ’n’ Becks they are not.

Asked how they would celebrate their record-breaking Games, Jason said a quiet night in with their threeyear-old, Albie, was as rock ’n’ roll as it would get. “Just being at home is the plan,” he said. “Just being together with Albie, we have not seen him for two weeks now. We haven’t left him for more than a day or two previously.”

Albie has been staying with his two sets of grandparents for the past two weeks. It is a familiar routine for them as they all pitch in to make Laura and Jason’s sporting lives manageable. “It’s a huge team effort,” said Dani Rowe, who won the team pursuit with Laura at London 2012. “Laura’s parents moved from Hertfordshire to Manchester to be nearer to them. They’ve all done so well to manage it.”

Jason is happier focusing on his training, his motorbike and taking his son to football and swimming than attending parties or sitting on red sofas. “We’ve been to the Palace a few times collecting OBES, MBES and other bits and bobs,” the Boltonborn rider said last year when asked why he thought he had not yet been knighted. “I’m quite happy with the level that we are at. 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.”

Laura, he said yesterday, does get a bit more attention from sponsors. “Probably because she is generally nicer than I am,” he said. “Also infinitely better-looking. But that’s fine, it’s the way it is, she is a very inspiring character. She is lovely, obviously – that’s why I married her. But I am a bit boring. There you go.”