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Jason Kenny: 'I was happy to walk away and be normal but when I started training I felt like myself again'
The nappy changes are a doddle. “They’re my speciality now,” says Jason Kenny. “I barely have to wake up to do those, I’ve done that many.” It is the night feeds that Kenny and his wife, fellow Olympic grandee Laura, are finding a grind in these early weeks of parenthood.
“People ask ‘How many times are you up at night?’ and you say ‘Probably twice on average’. It doesn’t sound that bad, does it? But it’s the fact that you’re up an hour-and-a-half every time. He [their son Albert] won’t go back to sleep…”
The 29 year-old had “pretty much decided”, in his own head anyway, that he was done with track cycling. He says he felt “flattened”, physically and mentally, after winning those three golds in Rio last summer where he became the joint most successful GB Olympian of all time, tied with his former team mate Sir Chris Hoy.
“It does drive you mad,” Kenny says of the quadrennial Olympic grind. “It flattens you physically as well. I thought I was just getting older, but I was just getting slowly flattened by it. I was going fast. There was nothing wrong with me [physically]. But it’s constantly doing the same thing over and over again. You become less of a human being almost. I couldn’t walk very far without my legs hurting.”
A year off has changed Kenny’s outlook. Freshened him up. He and Laura got married this time last year, they went on honeymoon (a campervan road trip with their dogs Sprolo and Pringle for this unstarriest of stars). He indulged in a few pastimes that were off limits when he was holed up like a Tibetan monk in training camps; mountain biking, swimming (“I’m rubbish at swimming, it turns out”), motor racing.
A self-confessed petrolhead, Kenny got to attend the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. He got his ACU motorbike race licence. “I got to take a [Kawasaki Ninja] H2R down a runway at Oulton Park, which was very exciting,” he says. “Laura wasn’t mad keen. I got to 200mph, which was on my bucket list. So I’ve ticked that one off. I thought doing 200mph in a car would be amazing, but doing it on a bike…”
It was earlier this year that the first urge to return to the track really kicked in; a feeling he felt sure he would never experience again having been going virtually non-sttop since well before Beijing.
“In my head I’d pretty much made the decision that I wasn’t going to come back after Rio,” he says. “I didn’t want to announce anything just because I’m not that kind of person. I didn’t want a big fanfare or anything daft. I was happy to walk away and do other things and be normal. I’d had enough of always living my life to a schedule and it being full on 24/7…
“But when I did refresh I started enjoying it again; out on the mountain bike, going to the gym. I liked the feeling. Before I knew it I was training and feeling like myself again.
“I’d never had more than two weeks off in my career. And even when I have had two weeks off, I’ve always been thinking about coming back. I almost had to walk away to totally switch off.”
In Albert’s defence, the final decision actually came a few weeks before his birth last month. “It was when Laura was heavily pregnant I suppose; six weeks out from when Albie was born. We had got everything set up so Laura could train at home. I was just training because it was there and enjoying it.
“It got to the point where I thought: ‘Why not?’ I wanted to compete and race. And timing-wise it has worked out really well. Olympic qualification starts about this time next year.”
Kenny says he suffered a setback almost immediately; his rib “popping” while doing a leg press. It was a reminder, he says, of just how far his conditioning had deteriorated. In fact, with fatherhood the main priority right now, he is having to get used to a whole new way of training. “I’ve got a programme right now that I’m completely ignoring because I didn’t realise lack of sleep would affect recovery so much. I’m so used to training at certain times of the day, sleeping nine hours. Now I’m not doing that. There’s an element of unpredictability I’m not used to. It’s a learning curve.”
That will only even harder when Laura makes her track return in due course, which she will do. Sooner rather than later to judge from the way Kenny is talking. (“She’ll come back when she gets the all clear from the doctor,” he says. “It was always her plan.”) But he insists they are excited about the challenge of trying to add to their combined haul of 10 Olympic golds; juggling training schedules and babysitting duties. “We’ve turned our garage into our own high performance centre,” he reveals. “I’m going to train as much as I can at home.”
Kenny will make his track return at the Manchester leg of the Revolution Champions League in January, but says he is not planning on being competitive until this time next year when Olympic qualifying begins at the European track championships. He knows better now, though, than to make any predictions about his future. Could he go on to Paris 2024? He would only be 36, the same age Hoy was when he won his last gold at London 2012?
“I’m not ruling anything out any more,” he smiles. “Like I say, I was so sure I was retiring this time. People are living longer these days aren’t they? I could go for 10 [Olympic golds]...”
Six-time Olympic gold medallist Jason Kenny returns to racing at the Revolution Champions League. Tickets now on sale at www.cyclingrevolution.com
