Laura Kenny: Britain’s most successful female Olympian retires from cycling

Earlier in March, British Cycling performance director Stephen Park said Kenny had only a “slim chance” of competing in Paris.

“I was getting these hesitant feelings,” said Kenny.

“Going on to win another gold medal, as much as I would love to do that, it wasn’t giving me the energy I wanted any more, it just wasn’t.

“I wasn’t thinking, ‘I really want to go on and win one’. I was thinking, ‘I really want to stay at home with the children’.”

Kenny said the logistics of being on the road with Albie during her bid to compete in the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo – delayed to 2021 because of the Covid-19 pandemic – were very stressful.

“Taking Albie around the world, travelling around the world with him and qualifying for the Tokyo Olympics was absolute carnage,” she told Woman’s Hour on BBC Radio 4.

“I think Jason and I had this way of painting this really beautiful, easy picture and the picture that everyone wants: you can have a baby, you can come back and you can go on to win a gold medal – and it looks easy, and I’m telling you, it was far from easy, it was absolute carnage.

“And there were so many sacrifices along the way; there were so many flights I had to book here, there and everywhere. It was expensive.

“It worked, yes. But it didn’t come without some serious heartbreak and sacrifices.”