Road brings more success

The summer of 2014 also brought Kenny a thrilling Commonwealth Games gold in the points race and one of the highlights of her road career when she won the British National Road Race Championships. Kenny won a sprint, ahead of GB team-mates Dani Rowe and Lizzie Deignan, in Abergavenny to win her first, and so far only, national road title although she has also finished in the top five of that race in 2011, 2013 and 2015.

Indeed, although far from a specialist, Kenny’s ability on the road saw her land professional contracts, and enjoy some success, with Team Ibis Cycles, Wiggle Honda and Matrix Fitness between 2012 and 2015.

Back on the track in 2014, Kenny successfully defended her two titles in the team pursuit and omnium at the UEC European Track Championships. By the time the 2015 UCI Track Cycling World Championship in Paris arrived in February, however, team pursuit rivals had finally closed the gap on Kenny’s team with Australia qualifying fastest and winning the final by nearly three full seconds.

Kenny also had to settle for silver in the omnium although by the end of the year, and the UEC European Track Championships, she not only had the consolation of golds in the team pursuit and omnium but added the scratch race title for good measure. It meant that Kenny had accounted for half Great Britain’s tally of six golds at the championships and her career total of 10 European golds - a total she has since raised to 14 - left her as the most successful rider of all time in the UEC European Track Championships.

The 2016 season had one main focus - the Rio Olympics - although the UCI Track Cycling World Championships in London proved a disappointment in the team pursuit, with Kenny having to settle for the bronze medal before she recovered superbly to take golds in the scratch race and omnium.

That disappointment was quickly forgotten in Rio, however, where Kenny anchored the women’s team pursuit squad that broke the world record three times on the way to taking gold from the USA, a fact that meant Kenny had ridden the team pursuit six times over two Olympic Games campaigns and set a new world record on every occasion.

Her performance in the omnium was every bit as dominant. After finishing second in the opening event, the scratch race, she went on to keep her major rivals at bay throughout the remaining five disciplines and went on to add a fourth gold to her collection in impressive fashion by a commanding 24-point margin.

After an extended post-Rio break where Kenny gave birth to her first child, she made her return to elite competition less than six months after her son was born, competing at the UCI Track Cycling World Championships in Apeldoorn in 2018 where she won silver as part of a five-woman team pursuit squad alongside Archibald, Barker, Emily Nelson and Ellie Dickinson.

That was the first of three successive silver medals for the team at World Championships in which they came second to the USA (in 2018 and 2020) and Australia (in 2019).

Kenny enjoyed greater success in the UEC European Championships in that period, however, winning three consecutive team pursuit golds (from 2018-20) as well as a gold in the 2018 elimination race, silvers in the 2019 omnium and Madison and a silver and bronze in 2020, in the omnium and Madison, respectively.

The 2019-20 track season was less kind to Kenny, however, as she broke her shoulder in a World Cup meeting in Milton, Canada, and was then involved in a heavy crash in the omnium scratch race at the 2020 UCI World Track Championships in Berlin.

Thankfully, Kenny was uninjured in that opening event but scored minimum points, a setback which eventually saw her finish 12th overall in an event she had been favoured to win.

At least, in a year in which racing was curtailed by the Covid-19 pandemic, Kenny ended 2020 proving she was back to her near best with that silver omnium medal at the UEC European Track Championships in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, where she only missed out on gold, to old rival Kirsten Wild of the Netherlands, by two points.

Away from the bike

Kenny’s remarkable story had a remarkable beginning, the double Olympic champion was born a month prematurely in Harlow, Essex, with a collapsed lung and later diagnosed with asthma. Advised to try sport to help with her breathing, Kenny first participated in trampolining before being forced to stop due to an undiagnosed condition that caused her to sporadically pass out.

Growing up in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, Kenny and older sister Emma, who would go on to become a professional road rider, first took up the sport when their mother Glenda decided to cycle to lose weight.

Along with father Adrian, the family would spend weekends on lengthy bike rides with Laura eventually starting to race, at the age of eight, and ride at the track of local club Welwyn Wheelers.

At Christmas 2014 Laura and fellow GB gold medallist cyclist Jason Kenny announced their engagement. They married shortly after their success in Rio in 2016, and Laura gave birth to their first child, Albert Louie Kenny in August 2017.

Her profile also saw the former Grundy Park Leisure Centre in her hometown Cheshunt renamed The Laura Trott Leisure Centre in her honour following a £4 million redevelopment.

Kenny was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2013 New Year Honours list and Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 2017, both for services to cycling. She received the latter, with husband Jason who was also appointed a CBE, at Buckingham Palace in April 2017.

In 2013, she also received an honorary degree from the University of Essex.

Palmarès