KING KENNY
Who is Jason Kenny CBE? Seven-time Olympic gold medallist whose wife Olympian Laura has retired
Kenny's illustrious career is rivalled only by one other person
LAURA Kenny is not the only gold medal winner in their star-studded family.
Britain's most decorated female Olympian, who announced her retirement, happens to be married to the holder of most Olympic gold medals and medals for a British athlete.
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Who is Jason Kenny?
Sir Jason Francis Kenny, CBE, was born in Bolton on March 3, 1988 making him 35 years of age.
He went to school at nearby Mount St Joseph's - which he visited before the 2012 London Games to praise for its role in turning him into an Olympian.
Jason Kenny's sporting history
The former track cyclist holds the record for the most medals by a British athlete, including seven Olympic golds and a total of nine medals overall.
Kenny began his winning streak at the 2006 World and European Junior titles, and achieved medals in the under-23 European championships in 2007.
Soon after, he was picked for Team GB at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.
Along with Sir Chris Hoy and Jamie Staff, he secured a gold medal in the team sprint and set a new world record during the qualifying round.
Even though he finished behind Hoy in the final of the individual sprint, he still managed to secure a silver medal.
Unexpectedly, the athlete claimed his first world championship title in 2012 after Grégory Baugé's results were invalidated due to a retroactively applied 12-month suspension for missing a drug test.
It led the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) to elevate Kenny to the gold medal position.
He beat Baugé again in the final at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, winning gold medals in both the team sprint and the individual sprint.
Four years later, he won in the Team Sprint and the Individual Sprint again, and also won the Keirin, where riders follow a motorbike which gets them up to speed, then lets them race to the line.
And 2020 was no different, as he picked up another Keirin gong.
However, he suffered his first defeat at the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics in the summer of 2021.
The team took silver, losing out to the Dutch in the final.
Is Jason Kenny in a relationship?
In September 2016, he tied the knot with fellow Team GB cyclist and British Olympic gold medallist Laura Kenny, previously Laura Trott.
The cycling champion has previously said “it wasn’t love at first sight” when she met Kenny, because he never spoke to her in training. Their romance became public by accident.
They were spotted kissing in the crowd as they sat behind David Beckham during the beach volleyball on Horse Guards Parade at London 2012.
The couple, who own a cottage near Knutsford, Cheshire, have since been nicknamed the Posh and Becks of cycling - with Kenny proposing to Trott on Christmas day in 2014.
Wife Laura holds the same records for cycling on the female side, and together they are the most successful married couple in Summer Olympic history where both spouses have won at least one gold medal.
The dynamic duo have 12 gold and 3 silver medals between them.
Laura announced her retirement from cycling aged 31.
She had been targeting a fourth games appearance in Paris this summer but, after giving birth last July, she has now announced that will not be happening.
Jason Kenny collects seventh gold medal of glittering career making British Olympic history
Kenny was knighted as a Knight Bachelor in the 2022 New Year Honours for his services to cycling, earning the title Sir, while his wife Laura was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the same honours list, for the same reason.
How many children do Jason and Laura Kenny have?
Cycling’s golden couple have two children, having welcomed sons Montgomery George in 2023, while Albert Louie was born in 2017.
In November 2021 they suffered a miscarriage - that led to her undergoing lifesaving treatment to remove a fallopian tube - and then an ectopic pregnancy in January 2022.
Laura told : “I always knew deep down I would know when was the right time.
“I have had an absolute blast but now is the time for me to hang that bike up.”
Laura continued: “It's been in my head a little while, the sacrifices of leaving the children and your family at home is really quite big and it really is a big decision to make.
“More and more, I was struggling to do that. More people asking me what races was I doing, what training camps was I going on - I didn't want to go ultimately and that's what it came down to.
“I knew the minute I was getting those feelings. Once I said to Jase, 'I don't think I want to ride a bike anymore', I started to feel relief.”
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Has Jason Kenny retired?
In February 2022, Kenny revealed his retirement from competitive cycling to assume the position of men's podium sprint coach with British Cycling.
Speaking to the , he said: "A massive part of me would love to continue and try to get to Paris and I'm a little bit sad in a way to not do that.
"The opportunity at British Cycling to be a coach might not be there in three years. I thought I'd take it now."
He went on to add: "I'm really sad. It's all I've ever known is racing and training.
"I'm sad on that front but excited to start this new journey.
"It's a step into the unknown. I've worked with amazing coaches and I'm trying to unlock my memories of what I remember as a rider and what I liked."
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