'This time I've come back for me' – Laura Kenny works toward Paris Olympics

There is no doubt Laura Kenny knows how to stage a successful comeback, the British track rider scooped up a gold and silver medal at the Tokyo Olympic Games after giving birth to son Albie in 2017. 

Yet the tighter timeframe on her second comeback had initially cast some doubt about whether she could do it all again for Paris but she made it clear that she will be giving it her all to try and make it onto the boards of the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines Velodrome next summer.

“I obviously want to compete in the next Olympics and I know that everyone thinks I am absolutely mad in saying that but if I don’t try I’ll never know," said Kenny in a Team GB video series titled The Journey. 

"And I would hate to sit here thinking that I never even gave it a go to see whether I could make it possible."

Kenny, who had her second child Monty in July, is Great Britain's most successful female Olympian, securing her fifth gold medal at the Tokyo return and making it her third golden Games in a row.

“The two different comebacks between Alby and Monty have been so different. With Alby I came back feeling I had a point to prove. That you could be a mum and you could be Olympic Champion all at the same time," said Kenny. 

"This time I think I’ve come back for me. I’ve come back very much because I love riding my bike and I cannot imagine it not being part of my life.”

Despite the success of Kenny's first comeback there were plenty of challenges along the way as she worked her way from Olympic to Commonwealth gold and then parenthood for a second time. 

The 31-year-old and her husband, retired track cyclist Jason Kenny, also had to grapple with a miscarriage and ectopic pregnancy along the way.

"It was all terrifying really," said Kenny of the ectopic pregnancy, having gone to the hospital not realising she was pregnant and then having to have emergency surgery to remove a fallopian tube. 

"I struggled massively mentally after everything we went through and I’d say I wasn’t truly happy until we fell pregnant with Monty. You are living a life in the public eye and obviously we had the Commonwealth Games and stuff. I had to pretend that everything was okay.”

Kenny is determined but her return to competition after her second child won't be easy. There is little more than a year between Monty's birth and track competition at the Paris Olympic Games and a recovery and training process that needs to be carefully negotiated in the months ahead.

“You know that little saying slow and steady wins the race, I’m always like ‘trust me, it doesn’t’ but when it comes to the rehab it kind of does," said Kenny. 

"I can’t rush it on, I can’t push it on. It can be hard at times.”

Kenny is clearly not easily daunted by a challenge. 

The rider who, along with British road cyclist Lizzie Deignan, has helped deliver a clear message that a women's sporting career doesn't have to be over once children arrive, has her sights firmly set on making the dream of Paris a reality.

"I hope both children see their mum as someone who was determined to make both things work," said Kenny. 

"They will never have the burden of thinking ‘oh well mum had me and then ended her career’ because I didn’t, I carried on, I made it work. 

"I hope that they look back and they can see that, and see that from the day they were born they were part of the journey.”