Laura Kenny

Kenny was born a month prematurely in Harlow in Essex^[1] with a collapsed lung and was later diagnosed with asthma. She was advised by doctors to take up sport in order to regulate her breathing. She enjoyed and competed in trampolining but had to give up due to respiratory problems.^[8][9] She grew up in Cheshunt in Hertfordshire, where she attended Turnford School.^[1][10][11] Her older sister Emma Trott is a former road racing cyclist.^[12] She is an avid supporter of Tottenham Hotspur F.C.^[13] She began in the sport together with her sister when they rode alongside their mother who had taken up cycling in order to lose weight.^[14]

She won two junior titles at both the 2009 and 2010 British National Track Championships,^[15] and placed third in the individual pursuit at the latter^[15] to win a place in the 2010 European Track Championships team pursuit squad aged just 18.^[6] After winning gold at the Euros, she went on to take her first world title at the 2011 championships, again as part of the team pursuit squad.^[6] In the run-up to the 2012 Olympics she won a further two World and two European golds, in both the team pursuit and the omnium,^[16] before securing her place in the Great Britain team as those events made their Olympic debut.

At the 2012 Summer Olympics, Kenny won a gold medal in the team pursuit with Dani King and Joanna Rowsell.^[17] The team set a world record time of 3:14.051 in this event.^[18] Including pre-Olympics races and the Olympics final itself, in the six times they had ridden together they had broken the world record in every race.^[17] She also won gold in the omnium, two days after winning gold in the team pursuit.^[19][20] For the 2012 road season, Kenny joined Team Ibis Cycles,^[21] though she competed in only five races.^[22]

2013 saw her increase her road racing commitments with new team Wiggle Honda.^[23] Her best result was a second place at the British National Road Race Championships, bringing her the under-23 title,^[24] though her road racing was intended to function in service of her track preparation, rather than replacing it.^[25] Kenny took further World and European team pursuit gold medals at the 2013 and 2014 championships, as well as European ominium title and World ominium silver in both those years.^[26] After making the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow her focus for this period,^[25] she entered the games with a kidney infection and finished well down the field in the scratch race and individual pursuit.^[27] Recovering as the Games progressed, she won a gold medal for England, in the points race.^[28] On the road she went one better at the national road championships, winning the title for her first senior road race win.^[29]

In February 2015, Kenny failed to win a title at the World Championships for the first time in her career, finishing second in both the team pursuit and omnium.^[30] The result was part of a poor Championships for Britain, with the team finishing without a gold for the first time since 2001.^[31] Trott moved to the new Matrix Fitness Vulpine team for 2015 as a lead rider,^[32] moving to the team in order to better combine her road and track cycling ambitions.^[31] After a road season in which her best result was 3rd in National Championships, Trott returned to win three gold medals at the 2015 European Championships, in the team pursuit, scratch race and omnium.^[33] She followed this with gold medals in the scratch race and omnium at the 2016 World Championships in London, as well as a bronze in the team pursuit.^[34]

At the 2016 Olympics Trott was a favourite for the omnium, and with hopes of a medal in the team pursuit.^[35] In the team pursuit, Great Britain took gold setting world records in the qualification and final of the tournament, defeating the American world champions in the final. This made Trott the first British woman to win three golds,^[36][37] though this achievement was matched by Charlotte Dujardin the next day.^[38] In the Ominium, Trott dominated from the start and finished in the top two in five of the six events, to take a comfortable gold medal and once again become Britain's most successful female Olympian.^[39][40] Following the end of the track cycling competition at the games, Trott and her fiancé Jason Kenny were lauded in the British press as a 'golden couple', having won five gold medals between them in 2016, to reach a total of ten as a couple.^[41][42][43]

At the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics in the summer of 2021, Kenny and her team-mates took the silver medal in the team pursuit: they briefly held the world record after their ride in the first round before Germany set a faster time in the next heat and secured a place in the gold medal final against Team GB. Germany broke their world record again in the final to win the gold, finishing six seconds ahead of the British team.^[44] Kenny and Katie Archibald subsequently went on to become the first Olympic champions in the women's Madison with a dominant performance, winning 10 of the race's 12 sprints and gaining a lap on the field with 20 laps to go to secure a total of 78 points, more than twice the score of the second-placed Danish team.

The win made Kenny the first British woman to win golds at three consecutive Olympics, the most successful female cyclist in Olympic history, eclipsing Leontien van Moorsel, and tied her with Charlotte Dujardin for the most Olympic medals won by a British female sportsperson.^[5] In the omnium, Kenny's medal hopes suffered a setback in the opening scratch race when she was involved in a multi-rider crash on the penultimate lap. She went on to win the tempo race but could only finish 13th in the elimination race. After the closing points race she moved up from ninth place to finish sixth in the overall standings.^[45] Kenny was subsequently selected as the flag bearer for the British team at the Games' closing ceremony.^[46] Kenny announced her retirement from cycling on 18 March 2024.^[4]

Trott married track cyclist Jason Kenny at a private ceremony on 24 September 2016.^[47] The couple live near Knutsford in Cheshire.^[48] Their first son was born on 23 August 2017.^[49] In November 2021, she suffered a miscarriage at nine weeks, and in January 2022, she underwent surgery due to ectopic pregnancy.^[50] The Kennys received equivalent honours in January 2022.^[51] Their second son was born on 20 July 2023.^[52]

Sources:^[3][53]

Trott was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2013 New Year Honours for services to cycling^[57][58] and Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2017 New Year Honours, also for services to cycling.^[59] Both Laura and Jason Kenny received their CBEs on Tuesday 25 April 2017 at an Investiture in Buckingham Palace.^[60] Taken together, Laura and Jason Kenny won 12 Olympic gold medals, which places them among the most successful Olympic medalist families of all time.

She received an Honorary Degree from the University of Essex in 2013.^[61]

In 2014, the former Grundy Park Leisure Centre in Cheshunt was renamed The Laura Trott Leisure Centre in her honour following a £4 million redevelopment. Trott attended the launch ahead of competing in stage four of the first Women's Tour from Cheshunt to Welwyn Garden City.^[62]

Kenny was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2022 New Year Honours for services to cycling.^[63] Her husband Jason was knighted in the same list, also for services to cycling.^[64] They were both invested at Windsor Castle on 17 May 2022.^[65]

• List of multiple Olympic gold medalists
• List of Olympic medalists in cycling (women)
• 2012 Olympics gold post boxes in the United Kingdom
• List of British cyclists

• Official website  
• Laura Kenny at UCI  
• Laura Kenny at British Cycling (archive)
• Laura Kenny at Team GB  
• Laura Trott at Team Ibis Cycles (archived)
• Laura Trott at ProCyclingStats  
• Laura Trott-Kenny at Olympedia (archive)  
• Laura Trott-Kenny at Olympics.com