Dame Laura Rebecca Kenny[3]DBE,
OLY (néeTrott; born 24 April 1992) is a former British professional
track and
road cyclist who specialised in track endurance events, specifically the
team pursuit,
omnium,
scratch race,
elimination race and
madison disciplines.[4] With six Olympic medals, having won both the team pursuit and the omnium at both the
2012 and
2016 Olympics and madison at the
2020 Olympics, along with a silver medal from the team pursuit at the 2020 Olympics, she is both the most successful female cyclist, and the most successful British female athlete, in Olympic history.[5]
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]
Career
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 won 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
fiancéJason 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] She announced her retirement from cycling in March 2024.[4]
Personal life
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 a surgery due to
ectopic pregnancy.[50] The Kennys both received knighthoods in January 2022.[51] Their second son was born on 20 July 2023.[52] On 18 March 2024, Kenny announced her retirement from cycling.[4]
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]