An Olympic great has been handed a key role at next summer’s Glasgow Commonwealth Games.
Dame Laura Kenny, 32, the most successful female cyclist in the history of the Olympics, has been appointed the youngest ever President of Commonwealth Games England (CGE). She is determined to do all she can to help mums compete successfully next year.
And Great Scot Sir Chris Hoy has given her some tips on her high profile role as a TV pundit. Speaking with 500 days to go to the Games and to mark Commonwealth Day tomorrow, she told the Mirror : “I am so proud of Glasgow. There is that rivalry with England and believe me Katie Archibald and I have had many a ding dong in the past. But I feel so proud that Scotland has stepped up to host the Games again; they may be smaller but it would have been such a waste to lose them.”
Speaking at the Manchester Velodrome, she added: “It was so important that we saved them and I hope that these Games are a blueprint for the future. Using existing infrastructure is a huge cost saved.
“We do not have to build an athletes’ village, we can use hotels, and I hope that it is not always a smaller version and in the long term we can get it back to what it used to be.”
Laura, married to Team GB’s greatest ever Olympian and fellow cyclist Jason Kenny, hopes to continue her work as a TV pundit. She is following in the footsteps of Dame Kelly Holmes and Dame Denise Lewis, both former CGE Presidents.
Laura paid a touching tribute to six-times Olympic champion Sir Chris, 48, when he spoke of his terminal cancer diagnosis in October, saying she and her family would ‘always be there for him’. And she told how he had given her advice on her TV work.
“Sir Chris Hoy warned me beforehand, he said ‘whatever you do, don’t read what they say online about you’,” she said. “He told me ‘there will be some people who like you, but there will be people who do not like you, so just avoid it’. I am so bad at social media, I am not very good at it, I never go on it.
“I would love to work with the BBC too if they take it on, Denise Lewis did that and I would love to be involved again. I was absolutely terrified that first time that we went live. The Paris Olympics was the first time in my life that I was not representing anyone other than myself, I was offered some media training by the BBC. But I wanted above all to be myself, that was the most important thing, to be true to myself and make sure that I reflected my own personality.”
Her other key aim, as an ambassador for the Games, is to help mums compete against the very best. Seven of the nine mums in Team GB won medals in Paris. She says her Gold medal in Tokyo, after becoming a mum for the first time, was her greatest Olympic feat. “I would love to make it as easy as possible for mums,” said Laura, mum of Albie, seven, who took her 2022 Commonwealth Gold to school for show and tell recently, and Monty, eighteen months.
She is expecting her third child with Jason in Spring. “I want to make sure athletes have support and access to their little ones, I am 100 percent behind that.
“I had such a positive experience with British cycling and Team GB competing in 2020. With Albie and that was even more difficult; any light I can share from that experience to help others, I will do it 100 percent.”
On her retirement, she joked: “There is absolutely no way I could ever compete now, it would take me so long to come back to any kind of fitness. I am not going to say that it was an easy decision to make because of course it was not. I have a bike with a basket on the front now for shopping. I know that it was the right one; I have not looked back.”
She hopes that her experience as a top level athlete – one of our all time greats – will now help others. Laura joked how she has come a long way since her relationship with Jason Kenny became public knowledge for the first time.
They were spotted kissing at London 2012 beach volleyball, when they were in the stands next to Prince Harry and David Beckham. She admitted they were then the ‘Posh and Becks’ of British Cycling; it was the sport’s leaders who told them to keep their romance under wraps.
She added: “When we first met, and we were pictured at London 2012, imagine what that would be like now? British Cycling were so protective, they told us not to tell anyone. I had never been to an Olympics whereas Jason had, so if it had come out and we had not gone on to win, if it had come out beforehand, I am not sure that I would have been able to deal with it.
“Everyone said we were the Posh and Becks of the cycling world, but if it had come out beforehand, then I would not have been able to handle it. The phone was going mad the day after all those pictures with Prince Harry and David Beckham in the foreground. Can you imagine what that would have been like now?”
Dame Laura won golds in the omnium and team pursuit at London 2012 and Rio 2016. After giving birth to her first son Albie in 2017, she went on to win the madison with Katie Archibald at Tokyo 2020, as well as a silver in the team pursuit.
She suffered a miscarriage and an ectopic pregnancy within three months of each other before conceiving Monty, and questioned whether her Olympic training schedule could have played a part.
Laura, who took up cycling after her mum tried it to lose weight, has an incredible 34 gold medals to her name, including the two won at the age of 20 in front of a delighted home crowd at the London 2012 Olympics. As well as her five Olympic golds, she has won seven World Championships, 14 European Championships and two Commonwealth Games titles. When her silver and bronze medals are taken into account, the total comes to 48.
The Glasgow Commonwealth Games take place from July 23 to August 2 next year. John Steele, Chair Commonwealth Games England, said: “We are thrilled that Dame Laura has agreed to become our President, her passion for the Games is clear and her insights will be invaluable.
“She is one of our nation’s greatest athletes and that experience at the very highest level of sport will inspire the next generation of Team England and assist the CGE in supporting them. She brings invaluable experience to our senior leadership team as we look to the future with renewed confidence.
“As a movement it is imperative that we now take time to reflect on our past, tell the story of our sporting history, but think radically about what modern Commonwealth Sport and a new Games model could look like as we go into the centenary in 2030. Dame Laura will play a crucial role in helping us protect the future of the movement.”