Dame Laura Kenny has revealed that she suffered with mental health issues for the first time while processing the trauma of an ectopic pregnancy and miscarriage last year.
The 30-year-old, who is Great Britain's most successful female Olympian and the most successful Olympic female cyclist of all time, gave birth to son Albie in 2017 with partner Jason Kenny.
However, tragedy struck for the joint-12 time Olympic medallists in November 2021, as Kenny suffered a miscarriage at nine weeks, only a few months after winning her fifth Olympic title in Tokyo.
While also battling a bout of COVID-19, the cyclist then had to face the trauma of an ectopic pregnancy - where a fertilised egg implants itself outside of the womb - only two months later, leading to the removal of one of her fallopian tubes.
Speaking exclusively to Sports Mole in partnership with the Dried Fruit Alliance, Kenny openly admitted to struggling with her mental health and questioning why her body 'let her down' as an elite athlete.
"There's loads of times that I've felt like I needed to put on a brave face. I always say I'm just being me. If I crash, I get back on, everyone knows I'm so determined to just be OK, but actually a lot of the time there wasn't anyone asking if I was OK," Kenny explained.
"It was the first time that I'd suffered with mental health issues, I had six to eight months of feeling guilty and thinking 'why me?' and 'why did my body let me down?' I'm an athlete, it never lets me down. To this day, it's never let me down, so why all of a sudden did it decide that it wasn't having it?
"You go through this period where everyone felt helpless, they didn't know what to say to me, they didn't know if they were going to say the right things. It was just lonely, it took me a long time to come out of the other side of that."
When riding her bike, however, Kenny admitted that the track was the only place where she felt 'normal' during her difficult period, adding: "Once I was on my bike, I was back in my happy space.
"Everything comes so naturally, it was the only time I had any kind of release from my thoughts. If you were scared about things happening, I wouldn't have put myself on the track, but it was the only place I felt normal."
Prior to suffering her miscarriage and ectopic pregnancy, Kenny became Olympic champion for the fifth time at the Tokyo 2020 Games, winning gold in the women's madison with close friend Katie Archibald.
Archibald, who has also achieved medal success with Kenny at the European Championships and Track Cycling World Cup, experienced her own personal tragedy in August of last year, as her partner Rab Wardell died suddenly at the age of 37.
Wardell - a Scottish mountain biking champion and Commonwealth Games participant - suffered a cardiac arrest in bed next to Archibald, who tried unsuccessfully to revive him alongside paramedics.
Opening up on her friendship with Archibald, Kenny has explained how the 28-year-old allowed her teammate to 'lean' on her, as well as fighting each other's battles in training if need be.
"I relied on Katie quite a lot, she was one of the only people that knew the full story. The way Katie is, she almost allows people to lean on her, but sometimes it can be quite overwhelming for her, but she allowed me to tell her absolutely everything," Kenny added.
"But that made things easier in a way, because when I came in to the track sessions, I knew that someone had my back and had my side if I bit someone's head off. I'd go into sessions and not know how I was feeling.
"I'd either be on an absolute high and the normal happy Laura or just like 'don't talk to me, go away, I don't need this in my life', and it would be really small that someone would say, and people would be like 'woah, what's wrong with her today?' But because I told Katie she could be there saying 'just leave it, she's having a bad day'.
"It was the same then on the flip-side, I could then be there for Katie. It allowed us to be vulnerable and have these really hard conversations with each other. But I still thought 'why us? Why did this happen to us?'. Last summer we were having a brilliant time, and then all of a sudden it came crashing down, and you can't help but think those things."
Kenny, who has 15 world medals, 18 European medals and three Commonwealth medals to her name alongside her six Olympic podium finishes, also discussed the possibility of competing at Paris 2024 as she eyes further success on the international stage.
Dame Laura Kenny is taking part in the #TwoBeforeTenChallenge to raise awareness of the health benefits of dried fruit. 95% of us are not getting our five a day, the research also shows that if you start the day the right way – with a breakfast containing two of your five a day – then you are statistically more likely to hit your recommended daily intake. For more information on the campaign head to the @EatMoreDriedFruit Instagram page.
