Olympic hero Dame Laura Kenny says her miscarriage and ectopic pregnancy left her “a different person” and she stopped caring about winning medals and just wanted a baby.
The cyclist, who won six Olympic medals and has two children with husband and fellow cyclist Jason Kenny, suffered a miscarriage in 2021.
She told Women’s Health UK: “I cannot tell you how sad I was for a year to 18 months. I mean, you could ask Jase how I was, I was a different person.”
The miscarriage was followed by surgery for an ectopic pregnancy which is when a fertilised egg implants itself outside of the womb, usually in one of the fallopian tubes, and baby does not develop and risks the health of the mother.
She said: “I just went within myself because it was consuming. And all I wanted was this little baby; I didn't want gold medals, you know, I didn't want to go and race in the Commonwealth Games. I wanted a baby. And it just wasn't happening.”
The couple, whose eldest son Albie is six, had their second son Monty 11 months ago. Before he was born Dame Laura won silver at the 2022Commonwealth Games but said the win did not make her happy.
She said: “I was like, why will [my body] do that and it won't do the one thing that I just want the most...
“I felt like I was living in this yin and yang world where you could only have one of them.
“And when you're an athlete who has had so much control over their body for so long, it literally just felt like the carpet had been ripped out from underneath me because all of a sudden I wasn't in control of it, and there was nothing that I could do.”
She announced her retirement in March this year.
