Laura Kenny returns to Olympics Velodrome this week after rabbit hunt with husband Jason and son Albie
DAME LAURA KENNY returns to the Olympics’ velodrome track next week after a year of living The Good Life and dealing with rabbits.
Britain’s greatest female cyclist will be one of the headline names when the Birmingham Commonwealth Games open on Thursday.
It is a decade since the London Olympics, where Kenny won the first two of her five golds, and the memories of that wonderful summer will flood back.
Representing England means a first major appearance since last year’s Tokyo Games when she and husband Jason brought their accumulated Olympic tally up to 12 golds.
Since then they have been on holiday to Disneyland Paris, watched four-year-old son Albie grow quickly, attend to an allotment and add more animals to their household.
Laura, 30, said: “We’ve just been enjoying being back to normal life and spending time as a family, really. We’ve actually had quite a lot of time spent in the garden.
“Jason’s got this vegetable patch which he’s growing lettuce in and building an amazing new hutch/bunny haven for our rescued rabbits. We love animals.
“We have dogs and a lot of ducks in our pond over the years but after the Olympics we adopted some rabbits.
“Sadly they were both attacked by a stoat, which was devastating. So when we saw RSPCA Macclesfield had four bunny sisters up for adoption, we couldn’t say no, and got to work.
“Jason built a properly fortified castle for these rabbits, and now we’ve got them safely at home.
“They’re all food-related as well, which is very on brand! They’re called Chicken, Brownie, Ketchup and Nugget — Albie named them.”
Since Japan – the Games were held by closed doors due to the Covid pandemic – Jason, 34, has retired from cycling and become a full-time coach.
Yet Mrs Kenny’s blazing saddles are still moving as she prepares for a first Commonwealth appearance since Glasgow 2014.
And she is relishing son Albie watching her in action in Stratford as she rides in the team pursuit, points race and scratch race.
She said: “I was so looking forward to him coming to Tokyo with us but again Covid put a spanner in the works there.
“It will be really lovely because he understands what we do for a job now.
“He has been to ‘work’ with us at the velodrome a few times, so I think it should actually be quite fun and memorable for him, too!
“I know there will be pressure on me on the bike but that’s something that comes with success.
“I said at the Tokyo Olympics ‘I’ll just keep on turning up’ and that remains the same. I’ll just keep on turning up, riding my bike round in circles. If they still want me, I’ll still be there.
“It’s funny because once you’ve won medals at major competitions, people just expect you to come back and be on the team every time, but it doesn’t work like that.
“After every competition, you’re all back to square one in a sense and each person has to qualify and earn their space,
“The place holds such special memories for me and our country.
“The velodrome at the London 2012 Olympics was a really magical place. It’s probably my favourite velodrome to ride on anyway, it’s a fantastic track.”
Kenny spoke to SunSport on behalf of Old El Paso’s #FajitaFriyayChallenge, which is encouraging people to participate in a social media challenge to help raise fajita meal kit donations for food charity FareShare.
She said: “There is a massive cost of living crisis at the moment and anything we can do to help anyone is important. I’m really proud to be backing the campaign.
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“I find it mad that parents are having to skip meals to feed their children and family, so it’s more important than ever to be supporting organisations like FareShare.
“People show such kindness in donating to foodbanks and the amount of help people are giving at the moment in donating and supporting them is so heart-warming, but also so sadly needed.”