'I've achieved more than I could have ever dreamed' – Olympic champion Katy Marchant retires from track cycling
The 33-year-old sprinter spent 13 years with the Great Britain squad
Olympic champion Katy Marchant has announced her retirement from track cycling after 13 years on the Great Britain Cycling Team.
The 33-year-old, a heptathlete as a teenager, joined the national squad in 2013, and went on to represent Great Britain at three Olympic Games, winning the gold medal in the team sprint in Paris 2024.
She leaves the sport a former world and European champion, and the current world record holder in the team sprint, alongside her team-mates Emma Finucane and Sophie Capewell.
“I’ve achieved more than I could have ever dreamed of achieving. Inevitably I was going to retire at some point, and I always just said, ‘You’ll know when you know. I don’t really know what you’ll know, but you’ll just know.’ And guys, I just know,” Marchant told Cycling Weekly and other media in a round table interview.
“It’s not been a difficult decision. Don’t get me wrong, there have been moments where I’ve thought, ‘Could I just…? Should I just…? What if I just…?’ But I know what it takes to push on for another two years, and I’m incredibly proud of where I’ve got to and what I’ve done. I just don’t want to make those choices anymore to keep doing what it takes to get to LA [Olympics in 2028].”
“I never wanted to walk away from this sport because I had to, because I felt like I’d overstayed my welcome, or because physically I wasn’t capable anymore,” she continued. “I’ve written the story for the last 13 years, and I wanted to finish it the way I wanted to finish.”
Marchant (right) poses alongside team-mate Becky James after winning bronze on her Olympic debut in Rio.
Three years after first taking up track cycling, Marchant won bronze in the individual sprint on her Olympic debut at Rio 2016. She then spent a challenging period as the sole member of Britain’s women’s sprint programme, following the retirement of her close friend and team-mate Becky James in 2017, and qualified alone for the Tokyo Games in 2021.
In 2022, Marchant took time away from racing to give birth to her son, Arthur. She returned in 2023 to help spearhead the sprint programme’s resurgence.
“The whole of 2024 was an incredible year for me,” she said. Between January and November that year, Marchant became European champion in the 500m time trial, Olympic and world champion in the team sprint, and the world record holder. “That’s what dreams are made of,” she said.
“There’s a small part of me that’s a little bit sad I’m not going to be part of [the GB women’s sprint programme] anymore, but at the same time, I still carry a lot of pride that I’ve helped build that,” she said.
Celebrating Olympic gold with son Arthur.
Following a crash into the stands at the UCI Track Champions League in December 2024, in which she broke her arm and two fingers, Marchant put her racing on hold in 2025 to have a second child, Walter.
Again, she returned to elite competition, representing England at the 2026 Commonwealth Games, where she won silver in the team sprint. It was at that championships, she said, that she first had thoughts of retiring.
“I just had this funny feeling,” she said. “In the middle of the day, I spoke to Emma [Finucane] and told her what I was feeling and explained the feelings and I said, ‘Look, if this is the last day that I’m racing ever, I want to flipping enjoy it, and I want you to enjoy it with me.’”
Her final race was the keirin on the Sunday, in which she finished fifth and Finucane first.
One last dance in the keirin at the Commonwealth Games.
Asked about her post-retirement plans, Marchant said she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do. She lives on a farm outside of her hometown of Leeds with her husband, Rob, and their two sons. “I’ll be driving tractors through the summer, but I’ll definitely need to find that thing for myself,” she said.
“I’ve not really thought that far ahead, other than closing this chapter of my current life and reflecting on it in a nice way.
“Hopefully I can pave the way for not just cyclists but mums in sport. To be able to achieve that, and to do that twice, it’s quite unheard of, and to get back to a very, very competitive high level, I’m incredibly proud of myself. I hope people can watch that or learn from that and think that it is possible and worth doing.”
