Laura Trott opens up about married life with fellow Team GB cyclist Jason Kenny and struggling with the weight of public expectation
LAURA Trott grins as she describes 2016: it was the year she won double gold in Rio then capped her year off with marriage to fellow Team GB cyclist Jason Kenny.
Superwoman is a word that springs to mind.
“The Olympics can take over your life,” adds the 24 year old.
The groom, meanwhile, had just one job – driving his bride from the ceremony at the church to their reception venue, a 17th-century house in Cheshire where 61 guests dined on sausage and mash, Laura and Jason’s favourite dinner.
“Jason wanted 10 minutes [for] just us two straight after the wedding,” says Laura.
“He told me he wanted to get an old-style car so when [I saw it] I was like: ‘What is that?’ There, at the back of the church was this bright green Lamborghini!”
Wedding cars aside, cycling’s golden couple are anything but flash.
They live in a “shabby chic to the extreme” cottage near Knutsford, Cheshire, where Jason, 28, proposed on Christmas Day 2014 during an episode of EastEnders.
“We’re so far away from diamonds and glitter and I couldn’t be any further away from [being] the perfect wife!” Laura says.
She has, however, stuck to tradition by taking Jason’s surname.
“I’m still getting used to being Mrs Kenny. Some really old man rode up beside me the other day and said: ‘Are you Laura Kenny?’ I was like: ‘Laura who? Oh, that really is me!’” she laughs.
Her four-week honeymoon in Europe with Bolton-born Jason and their dogs Pringle (Laura’s favourite crisps) and Sprolo, gave Laura precious time to recover following her double-gold triumph in Rio.
With another two golds to her name from London 2012, she is now Britain’s most successful female competitor in any sport.
Success, however, brings a heavy weight of public expectation, which Laura struggles with.
“Trying to get back into it with the pressures and everything that the Games in London 2012 brought for me – people expecting you to win – was hard. I was only 20. I don’t think I would have quit, but I did stop enjoying it for a time.”
She admits that pre-race anxiety is her biggest weakness and she suffers so badly that she “can throw up with nerves”.
It’s possibly why, when asked to pinpoint her fondest memory from Rio, Laura focuses on Jason’s glory.
“Seeing Jason cross the line and get his third gold was probably my best moment. I had no control over it, I was like…” Laura stops to inhale deeply.
“I can’t believe he’s just won three gold medals.”
It was reminiscent of the moment they were caught on camera at London 2012 exchanging a kiss behind David Beckham while watching beach volleyball.
Her journey from unknown cyclist to sports idol has given Laura responsibility as a role model to young girls, which she takes very seriously.
“If a group of girls came here now and said: ‘I want to get out on the bike,’ I’d think: ‘Job done,’” she says.
“Cycling wasn’t cool,” she says.
“There wasn’t a Sir Bradley Wiggins or a Victoria Pendleton and the so-called cool kids used to shout at me because I’d be wearing a helmet. Girls drop out of sport because they don’t feel feminine. I can have really long hair and wedge it under my helmet and show them that it can be done.
“I haven’t got the biggest boobs in the world and I would rather have the thighs that I’ve got than be unhealthy and really skinny because of it. It’s about acceptance. Embrace what you’ve been given.”
National champion at 12, Laura was on the Olympic Development Programme by 15 and competing in her first Commonwealth Games in Delhi three years later alongside her sister Emma, now 26, who also used to cycle professionally.
So it was perhaps inevitable that Laura would end up representing Great Britain at London 2012.
Success, of course, requires dedication.
Laura trains six days a week, riding her bike for up to four hours at a time.
Her immediate future is undoubtedly exciting.
Laura and Jason have released a book together, The Inside Track, plus there’s a host of endorsement offers on the table.
Next month, she will race at the Senior National Madison Championships and then, fitness levels depending, take on next year’s World Championships.
Jessica Ennis-Hill has also helped her realise she can juggle her career and be a mum.
“Until Jess did what she did, I never thought that having kids and being a sports person was even possible,” says Laura.
So how would she feel if she discovered she was pregnant?
“I’d be happy because I’ve always wanted kids. I’d just deal with it,” she says.
As for Tokyo 2020, Laura hopes to be selected, but knows she can never rest on her laurels.
“Just because I’m Olympic champion now doesn’t mean I’m going to be good in four years. Every time I step on that podium I think: ‘How did I get here?’ Because for me it’s not a job, it’s just fun, which makes me so lucky.”
is out now (£20, Michael O’Mara).
Jade Jones
Taekwondo champion, 23
The evening before our shoot, double Olympic gold winner Jade strolled to her corner shop.
“The cashier said: ‘You’re that girl who kicks people in the head!’ I’m recognised a lot more since Rio,” says Jade, whose nickname – The Headhunter – was born from the way she targets opponents’ heads rather than their bodies.
The journey from London to Rio wasn’t easy.
“The only thing I had worked towards was London 2012, so when it was finished it felt strange, like an empty feeling,” says Jade.
When she announced to her mum Jayne at 16 that she wanted to quit sixth form and become a professional fighter, she was given a year to prove herself.
Within two months, she was part of the Olympic Academy and the following year qualified for London 2012.
She trains four to five hours a day and as for a social life, forget it!
“My friends have always been understanding,” she says.
“I wouldn’t say [not drinking] was a sacrifice [but] now I’m older I realise I’ve never been on a girlie holiday – I can’t go on benders all the time.”
Dating is also difficult.
Single for two years, Jade’s training means she has little time to meet anyone.
What qualities would the lucky guy need?
“They’d have to be fit, healthy and have some sort of goal in their lives. And they need to know that Taekwondo is a priority.”
Jade is shortlisted for the BBC Cymru Wales Sports Personality of the Year award. Visit .
Nicola Adams
Boxer, 34
She’s rewritten history in the ring, but outside of it Nicola has battled for more than just equality.
The flyweight won her first junior fight at 13, but although her own club – Burmantofts Boxing Club in Leeds, which she joined aged 12 – backed her dream, she faced abuse from rival coaches.
“They would say: ‘Girls shouldn’t be boxing, you should be in the kitchen,’” she says.
Her answer?
“I just got in the ring and showed them how good I was.”
And she’s never stopped.
In 2001, five years after the Amateur Boxing Association lifted a ban on female competitors, Nicola became the first female boxer to represent England.
At London 2012 she was the first woman to win an Olympic boxing title (gold to boot), and the first woman to have won European, Commonwealth and World titles.
In Rio, she went down in history as the only British boxer in 92 years to retain an Olympic gold.
Openly bisexual, she is proud to be a role model for the LGBT community and is dating a “high-profile US athlete”.
A Google search reveals her to be boxer Marlen Esparza, 27.
“We’ve been together eight months,” says Nicola, revealing a tattoo on her hand.
“It’s the Chinese symbol for love. We have the same one [so] I guess it’s kind of serious!”
And her biggest fight out of the ring?
“When my mum was sick,” she says.
“She got meningitis when I was 13 and was in hospital for three months. She almost died.”
Now mum Dee is her No.1 fan.
“She is always telling me how proud she is,” the boxer reveals.
There’s talk of Nicola becoming a Dame (“that would be so cool”) but she’s torn between turning pro or pushing for gold in 2020.
“They’ve never had a triple Olympic boxing champion, so there’s an incentive there,” says Nicola.
Nicola’s autobiography Believe will be published by Viking in April. . She has been shortlisted for Sunday Times Sports Women of The Year.