Dame Laura Kenny, Britain’s most successful female Olympian, is retiring at the age of 31
OLYMPIC legend Dame Laura Kenny has announced her retirement from cycling at the age of 31.
The star won five Olympic gold medals and amassed seven World Championships during her illustrious career.
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She had been scheduled to make a fourth competition appearance in Paris this summer, but after giving birth to her second child last July, she has now announced that will not happen.
Laura, whose surname was Trott before she married former cyclist and Britain’s only other more decorated Olympian, Sir Jason Kenny, in 2016, said BBC breakfast: “I always knew deep down that I would know when it was the right time.
“I had a blast, but now it’s time for me to hang up that bike.”
Laura continued: “It’s been in my head for a while: the sacrifices you have to make when you have to leave the kids and your family at home are really quite big and it’s a really big decision to make.
“I found it increasingly difficult. More and more people were asking me what races I was doing, what training camps I was doing – I ultimately didn’t want to go and that’s what it came down to.
“I knew it as soon as I got those feelings. When I said to Jase, ‘I don’t think I want to cycle anymore,’ I started to feel relief.”
The couple welcomed their first child, a boy named Albie, in 2017, but returned to cycling because she wanted to prove that athletes were capable of balancing both motherhood and the demands of the sport.
Laura suffered a miscarriage in 2021 and an ectopic pregnancy months later before their second child, a boy named Monty, was born in 2023.
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She triumphed in London, Rio and Tokyo to become Britain’s most successful female Olympian ever.
Laura was part of the team pursuit quartet that claimed gold at London 2012, before winning another in the omnium.
She repeated this feat in Rio with two more golds in the same events.
And in Tokyo she followed up silver in the team pursuit with a dominant gold in the team race, together with good friend Katie Archibald.
In November, she announced she was planning a shock return to try to compete in Paris.
However, British Cycling’s performance director Stephen Park recently revealed that the chance of that happening was only a “remote chance”.
Laura added: “I started to have hesitant feelings.
“To win another gold medal, as much as I would love to do that, it didn’t give me the energy I wanted anymore, but it just wasn’t.
“I didn’t think, ‘I really want to go on and win one.’ I thought, ‘I really want to stay home with the kids’.”
In addition to Olympic success, the star is also a fourteen-time European champion and won three medals, including two golds, at the Commonwealth Games.
Now she says she is “open to anything and everything” after retiring from the job.
Laura added: “Nothing is set in stone, but there are things I’m so interested in.
“Something to help the younger generation, whether that could be some kind of academy.
“I could never become a coach because that’s just too much pressure for me, but maybe something in the background that gives the young people the opportunities that I had.”
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