Laura Kenny has a 'slim chance' of competing at Paris Olympics

Five-time Olympic gold medallist Laura Kenny has a "slim chance" of making the GB squad for the Paris Olympics this summer, Great Britain Cycling Team performance director Stephen Park has said. 

Kenny, the reigning Madison champion, gave birth to her second child last July, and has been making a steady return to training. She has not raced in competition since late 2022. 

As a result, the 31-year-old does not currently have the required points for qualification, and will likely fall short of selection for the Games. 

"She has a slim chance of being in Paris," Park told the press, including Cycling Weekly, in Manchester on Monday. "The first challenge is to be in a position where she feels that she is going to be competitive, and therefore put a hand up to be selected for events that will allow her to qualify herself - because she needs to qualify herself in terms of the number of UCI points - as well as qualify in the team.

"Those are fairly significant hurdles," he added. "She’s got to be competitive in a team that’s more competitive than it’s ever been. We’ve got an ongoing and continual dialogue with Laura. We are supporting her, and have been supporting her, in terms of her return to training."

In an interview on Team GB’s YouTube channel last November, Kenny appeared to set her sights on this summer's Games. "I obviously really want to compete at the next Olympics," she said. "I know everyone thinks I’m mad in saying that, but if I don’t try, I’ll never know."

She later added more context to her statement, telling the BBC that she "hope[s] people don’t expect [her] to actually make it to Paris" and that it would be "such an ask". 

According to Park, Kenny is now "optimistic" about a return to racing at the 2024 Track World Championships, due to be held in Denmark in October, two months after the Olympics. 

"I think she’s weighing up the challenges of being a young mother of two kids, making sure she gets that balance right as well," Park said. "I’m sure whether she ends up riding in the Games or not, she’ll be involved in some way or another.

"I think that Laura will have an ongoing involvement with the Great Britain Cycling Team for years to come."

In recent months, Kenny has been training away from the GB track squad with her personal coach, Len Parker Simpson. "She's conscious that, while she's getting back into that place [of being competitive], she doesn't want to be in a situation where she's affecting the training of the others," Park explained. 

The 31-year-old would need to earn points in either of the two remaining UCI Nations Cup rounds to qualify for the Olympics, although she has not been selected for the first, scheduled in Hong Kong this month, and is unlikely to go to the second. 

Only five riders will make the women’s endurance track squad for this summer’s Olympics, with stiff competition for places. Neah Evans and Elinor Barker are the current Madison world champions, while Barker was also part of the rainbow-jersey-winning team pursuit squad in Glasgow last August, alongside Katie Archibald, Josie Knight, Anna Morris and Meg Barker. 

Kenny made her Olympic debut in London in 2012, winning the omnium and the team pursuit. She successfully defended both titles in Rio in 2016, and then went on to win the Madison with Archibald in Tokyo in 2021. 

At the start of this shortened Olympic cycle, Kenny had a miscarriage, before suffering an ectopic pregnancy in January 2022. She went on to win a gold medal at the Commonwealth Games that August, but later revealed she considered leaving the sport.