Britain's record Olympic gold medallist Jason Kenny reveals what brought him back from retirement
Kenny is glad to be back on his bike and opens up about his gruelling gym routine
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Your support makes all the difference.Six time Olympic gold medallist Jason Kenny has revealed why he reversed his decision to retire from cycling.
“I’d done enough basically, that was it,” said Kenny on his discrete plan to quit the sport after the Rio Olympics where he won gold medals in all three of the cycling events he took part in.
“I was pretty serious about going away and after walking away I was looking at future careers, I was really serious.”
But Kenny, who married fellow track cyclist Laura Kenny after the Rio games, has decided to put retirement on hold for at least another three years and admitted he could not turn his back on the sport. “I think I just started enjoying it again really.
“I kept on exercising, there’s lots of things I wanted to do, I wanted to exercise in different ways and that’s what I did. I went swimming, long walks with the dogs, bit of running. But it turns out I’m rubbish at running. I just went out and enjoyed riding my bike.”
Kenny, 29, has his eye on a place in Team GB’s team at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics but concedes he will have to get better to keep his spot.
“Every Olympic cycle gets harder effectively, you can’t do the same again. If we turned up with the same form I had in Rio, it won’t be enough to win. So you always have to be four years better and move on. So it will be difficult for sure.”
Plenty of top sportspeople turn their back on retirement, Michael Schumacher, Jonah Lomu and Floyd Mayweather – just to name a few, and Kenny has a plan to get himself back into the swing of competing at the elite level.
“I am a creature of habit. I take a little bit of getting going at the start, but once I’m going I just keep going and going and going and I feel like I get better and better.
“If you’ve done something for long enough and it’s something that I’ve lived and breathed for such a long time that I just kind of wanted a change and just kind of be normal for a bit.”
Kenny now has to balance being an athlete with being a father. “Having a little one is a massive change and I think it’s something that we’re still learning about.
“Learning to be a bit more flexible, so recently, if we’ve not had a good nights sleep, you have to accept that that’s going to affect you training.”
Kenny is back in the gym and is supporting the launch of Wiggle’s new section of online gym wear.
Jason Kenny's gym routine
Session 1
Power cleans, 4x3 reps around 110kg
Single leg press, 3x6 reps around 200kg
Session 2
Squats, 4x5 reps around 160kg
Trap bar deadlift, 4x3 reps around 200kg
Session 3
Power cleans, 4x3 reps around 110kg
Squats, 4x8 reps around 140kg limited recovery
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