A closer look at Jason Kenny’s seven Olympic gold medals
The keirin title on Sunday moved Kenny clear of his former team-mate Sir Chris Hoy.
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Your support makes all the difference.Jason Kenny became Britain’s most successful ever Olympian with his seventh gold medal on Sunday.
Kenny had already become the most decorated with his team sprint silver on Tuesday, but went one better in the keirin final with a stunning ride.
The seventh gold moves Kenny clear of his former team-mate Sir Chris Hoy and gives him nine Olympic medals in total.
Here the PA news agency takes a look at those with a golden tinge.
Team Sprint – Beijing 2008
Kenny made his Olympic debut in 2008 on the back of a fifth-placed finished at the preceding world championships in Varese, Italy. Hoy, Kenny and Jamie Staff had been beaten by the French in the World Cup in Manchester a few months earlier but fortunes flipped in Beijing and the British trio took victory by more than half a second. Kenny would have to accept silver behind Hoy in the individual event, however.
Team Sprint – London 2012
Hoy and Kenny were back in action together in London, this time joined by Phil Hindes. They broke the world record in both the first round and the final to take gold with a time of 42.6 seconds, with France once again having to accept silver. There was a degree of controversy over the event, however, with Hindes later admitting to having deliberately crash to force a restart after getting away slowly during qualifying.
Individual Sprint – London 2012
Teams were only allowed to enter one rider in the individual sprint in London and though Hoy had taken gold in Beijing, it was his younger team-mate who got the nod on home turf based on his superior results at the preceding world championships. Kenny delivered, breaking Hoy’s Olympic record to qualify fastest in a time of 9.713 and then dispatching his challengers before beating France’s four-time world champion Gregory Bauge 2-0 in the final. It was the first time Kenny had beaten Bauge, later stripped of his 2011 title for missing doping tests, head to head.
Team Sprint – Rio 2016
With Hoy having retired, Callum Skinner joined Kenny and Hindes in the team sprint and there was no let up as they set an Olympic record in qualifying. New Zealand would go even faster during the first round to keep them on their toes, but the British trio responded in the gold medal race, winning in a record time of 42.440seconds.
Individual Sprint – Rio 2016
Britain were back to two riders in the individual competition as the rules changed again in 2016, with Kenny and Skinner in the mix. Bauge and Denis Dmitriev had been dominating individual sprints sine London with Kenny quiet until he beat Australian Matthew Glaetzer to gold in the 2016 world championships. It was clear he had peaked at the right time as he broke his own Olympic record to top qualifying ahead of Skinner – who he would eventually beat to gold in the final.
Keirin – Rio 2016
Kenny completed a clean sweep of the sprint events with victory in the keirin. Kenny survived a possible disqualification after he and the Malaysian Azizulhasni Awang passed the motorised derby too soon but judges settled on a restart – and Kenny beat Matthijs Buchli to the line in the final. Victory moved him level with Hoy on a record six gold medals.
Keirin – Tokyo 2020
Kenny became the first Briton to win seven Olympic gold medals as he took a stunning victory in the men’s keirin final in Izu. He had complained of being out of form during the men’s sprint earlier in the week but you would not have known it from the way in which he rode away from the field to win by a yawning gap of 0.763 seconds from Azizulhasni Awang of Malaysia.