Laura and Jason Kenny return from cycling hiatus with baby on board

The return of the Kennys has the ring of a western or a reality television series about it, but for the Great Britain cycling team the joint comeback to international competition of their golden couple Jason and Laura midway through the Olympic cycle marks a neat end to the hiatus which has followed the Rio Games.

The pair are both set to compete on Wednesday at the world track championships in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands – Laura in the team pursuit and Jason in the first round of the team sprint. Neither is in a position to contest any individual events, as their time out since Rio means they have no qualifying points, although Laura won the British omnium championship in mid-February.

In the longer term the significance of the moment is clear. Between them the pair boast 10 Olympic gold medals, averaging two per Games. Laura is Britain’s most prolific female Olympian with four in London and Rio, while her husband Jason, whose first Games was Beijing, has managed six; together with fellow cyclist Sir Chris Hoy, he is the joint holder of the highest number of British gold medals. Both are now on a quest to extend those records.

READ MORE: Kenny excited by form ahead of track worlds

There was little doubt about Laura’s intent to return to racing after the birth of their first child, Albert, last August. Within six weeks she was already riding a turbo trainer and beginning gym work; she received advice before and after the birth from Jessica Ennis-Hill, contacted via a mutual friend, and when her coach Paul Manning threw her into the team it was clear that she had regained form faster than expected.

When Laura won the British omnium championship it implied that long term she should be competitive in a new format that has removed the timed events that favoured her so strongly. This week she should have a chance of a world title just over six months after giving birth, a spectacularly fast comeback.

Jason has faced a different situation. Rumours that he had retired were persistent after Rio, although no public announcement was ever made. He confirmed last week that in fact he had decided to quit in January 2016 and was effectively going through the motions as he took gold medals at the sprint and team sprint in Brazil. “I thought he had finished,” said Laura. “He’d told me he wasn’t enjoying it any more.”

“I took a year off, I didn’t have anything to do,” said Jason. “I went mountain biking, walking the dogs up mountains, just enjoying being outside. I started enjoying doing the gym again; I’d never liked the gym but take the programme away and you can do what you want. I drifted back into it.”

Ironically, helping his wife to plan her comeback after Albert was born helped to inspire Jason in his turn. “We were planning for Laura’s comeback, putting all the things in place, the gym in the garage and so on. One day I saw it was the same for me [as for her]; it seems a long time when you think about having a year off but, when you’ve been doing it as long as we have, it’s not.”

Discussing his retirement, Jason sounds like a man who needed a mental break. “I should have taken a few months off, but you try telling me that … When you’re in it, you can’t see anything, you’re just working to the plan. Even when you go on holiday you can’t completely switch off because you are thinking about when you will come back again. It wasn’t until I had decided I wasn’t going to compete again that I totally switched off.”

All of a sudden, the British cycling team have to deal with a new set of issues based around the fact that their most prolific medallists are now a team of three with a six-month-old baby to look after.

“We’re learning … there is flexibility in the programme that can allow them to train and compete but also be parents looking after a young family,” the team’s performance director, Stephen Park, said. “[But] we need to be careful it’s not one rule for one and one for others.”

Albert will accompany the team to Apeldoorn; grandparents will be on hand, and he and his parents will stay in an apartment on their own away from the team hotel. That in turn has implications for such mundane – and certainly not insurmountable – matters as transport to the velodrome for training and competition, or whether the Kennys will eat meals with the team, how they will attend team meetings and so on.

Comebacks and childcare put to one side, the pair jointly shake their heads over the task of clearing out their garage to create a gym, initially for Laura to train in after Albert’s birth although, as it turned out, it was for both of them. “It took some emptying,” said Jason. “We literally finished it the morning he arrived, we were hoovering it out that morning. It was a nightmare.”