by “The Discovery of the Century” is probably the best summary of Laura Kenny’s career, the attitude of the head coach of Great Britain before the 20-year-old’s first Olympic game in London in 2012. The appearance of Kenny’s enduring talent was evident back then that. The long-term passion and drive was not so easy to read as Britain’s most successful female Olympian, with six Olympic medals to her credit – five gold, one silver – in a 15-year career that spanned three Games. An old fact is involved in this case: his retirement on Monday ends an era, an era that is liberal gold at that time, with 23 other major titles to his name.
The arrival of Laura Kenny, née Trott, on the world stage happily coincided with the first steps taken by the world governing body, the UCI, to bring women’s track cycling on a par with men’s cycling, and to included in the multi-range track program. omnium discipline, which she dominated in 2012 and 2016, while at the same time being a cornerstone of the British women’s reign in the team pursuit. As the formats changed and the times changed, she adapted with aplomb, winning the first women’s gold medal in the Madison relay alongside Katie Archibald at the Tokyo Olympics. they were delayed in 2021.
Related: Laura Kenny’s amazing career – in pictures
In Laura’s “peak” years, 2011-2016, she turned one discipline in particular, the elimination race, into a personal party piece. The “devil take the lead”, in which the last rider is eliminated every second time, is a main series of local track series that has been recognized by the UCI – which has been hotly debated – and included in the omnium program . As the group dwindles, it takes a blend of pen-point calculation, hair-raising skill and sheer willpower to keep going every 30 seconds or so, amidst the constant need to stay out of trouble and the avoid falling.
“Somehow, she can find gaps that don’t seem to exist, somehow she reveals the speed to reach the back of the group when all seems lost,” I wrote in 2012, as she build up to London. Trott explained in April after her world title in Melbourne: “You just have to be really gutsy, too many girls knocking around and don’t get stuck. If there is a gap, why don’t you accept it? I’m only small and it’s do or die – I mean what’s going to happen, you’re going to finish and that’s the race, right? So you might as well try to go through a gap.”
As it has done in all of her omnium titles, the elimination win was central to her title at London 2012, providing the highlight of the afternoon’s penultimate racing at “the Pringle” and setting her up for a dramatic run to Super gold. On Tuesday, a crazy few hours saw Sir Chris Hoy win his last gold, Victoria Pendleton closed her career with a silver medal and Trott won the omnium with victory in the 500m time trial. To complete the picture of British sporting celebrity, the golden evening came with the revelation of a golden romance when Trott was shown at Wimbledon with her future husband, fellow multiple gold medalist Jason Kenny; by 2016 she and the other half had won 10 Olympic golds between them.
Kenny did what she did sound simple, and look simple, which was of course the hallmark of all great sports. But her initial path to the top was not straight, although the foundation clearly came from years competing on bank tracks, starting with her local velodrome at Welwyn, where she began racing at the age of eight, while trying to win a few quid, and be. she was classified as severely handicapped because of her tiny build.
She survived a collapsed lung as a newborn and an incident as a teenage trampolinist when she died in mid-air. One interviewer in 2012 discovered that she had just removed the stitches from her chin with nail scissors after a road racing accident in which her nose and cheeks were pierced by a spoke. Recently, she had to deal with a miscarriage and an operation for an ectopic pregnancy. That’s on a different level of seriousness from her legendary tendency to vomit after intense training and racing efforts, always with a sick bucket on hand in the velodrome. But it all reflects the same uncompromising attitude which made her a leader within the Great Britain cycling team straight out of her teens.
As well as Kenny’s ability to push through adversity, the coaches also noted her complete lack of complacency, “uncomfortable with what she perceives as a mediocre performance”. This refusal to compromise probably explains Kenny’s retirement. Having given birth to her and Jason’s second son, Monty, back in July – he followed Albie, born in August 2017 – she had not racked up enough ranking points to qualify for Paris the this summer. She needs to be in competitive form for the final World Cup of the spring in a few weeks’ time and Great Britain’s director of performance, Stephen Park, said 10 days ago that her chances were slim. For once, Kenny was unlikely to beat the clock.
Kenny briefly turned to road racing with great success, winning a British title in 2014, and if she has a legacy today, it’s more of an irony on the road than the track. The Olympic medal factory is going from strength to strength in its own highly financed bubble, and control is hardly visible at the grassroots level; more clearly, this year there will be 22 British women competing in the road WorldTour, more than any other nation apart from the Netherlands and Italy.
That generation, led by Pfeiffer riders Georgi and Josie Nelson, has been inspired by the British examples of Kenny and Lizzie Deignan as highly competitive, strong-minded athletes – it is certainly no coincidence that both returned to level world after they have. children. The national governing body is now pushing hard to ensure that the Women’s Tour of Britain goes ahead this year; the fact that such a race is now seen as a sine qua non it is also a tribute to the change of mind that Kenny and her colleagues made.
