Sir Chris Hoy suspects both Jason and Laura Kenny will overtake the record he currently jointly holds as Britain’s most successful Olympian by the conclusion of next year’s Tokyo Games.
The Scot won six Olympic gold medals across a glittering career while his former team-mate Jason Kenny equalled the benchmark by topping the podium three times at Rio 2016.
The pair have also won one silver each, meaning Kenny, who has returned to cycling after an extended sabbatical, has the opportunity to supersede Hoy in Japan next summer.
But Hoy, who retired from cycling in April 2013, believes Kenny’s wife, Laura, with four Olympic golds of her own, may well seize the chance to make history.
Speaking in his role as a Laureus Academy member, Hoy told Press Association Sport: “It’s lovely when you have that title yourself but then you never think you’re going to have it forever.
“You always think it’s only for one Games or two Games or whatever when someone else trumps you.
“When it’s a close friend, I was there when (Jason) won his third gold medal in Rio in the keirin and I was celebrating as hard almost as when I won my medals. He’s a great guy, he deserves all the success he gets.
“If he goes on and wins a medal, even a single bronze medal in Tokyo, that will make him the most successful Olympian of all time from Britain. If he gets that I’ll be thoroughly chuffed for him.
“But if you look at the medal count now, you look at Laura. She could win three gold medals (in Tokyo), she’ll just leapfrog everybody with seven gold medals.
“The Kenny household, they’ve already got 10 gold medals between the two of them, so it could be quite a full trophy cabinet when they get back from Tokyo.”
Jason Kenny contemplated retiring after the last Olympics but he has committed to competing in Tokyo for what will be his fourth Games.
Since Rio, Kenny has married Laura – who gave birth to the couple’s first child, Albert, in 2017.
Hoy, who collected gold alongside Kenny in the team sprint at Beijing 2008 and London 2012, said: “I think the key thing for Jason was him choosing to step away. He wasn’t forced back into training.
“He stepped away from it and essentially he had retired. He hadn’t announced it but he had retired.
“But then he started missing it and I think that passion for it came back and he wasn’t forced back into it, it was his own choice to come back into the team.
“I think parenthood puts other things in perspective too and I think he obviously thought, ‘I’ll make the most of this and do it while I can’ because you’re a long time retired.”
The Kennys will be in action for Great Britain this week at the World Track Cycling Championships in Pruszkow, Poland, where Hoy expects the likes of Australia and Holland to provide formidable competition.
Hoy revealed the differing mindsets of some British riders as he explained that the championships are likely to provide an indicator of how the individuals and countries are shaping up ahead of the Olympics.
"It's all getting a bit serious now…" 🌈 Less than one week until @JasonKenny107 is in action at the 2019 @UCI_Track Cycling World Championships and we're into the business side of things building to @Tokyo2020! 🇬🇧 Live across the week on @BBCSport 📺#Pruszkow2019 pic.twitter.com/gQYxN06idu — British Cycling (@BritishCycling) February 21, 2019
Hoy, an 11-time world champion, said: “All the teams, all the nations are really starting to show their hand now and they’re really having to not just put riders in for experience or for experimentation.
“I think we’re going to see, particularly from the women’s side of things, some really good performances. The men’s, hopefully, a few gold medals. The team are looking confident.
“I think the Aussies, the Dutch, the French, the Germans – the usual suspects – will shine but whether GB are the top nation overall, we’ll have to wait and see.
“You look at an athlete like Katie Archibald and she just wants to win every race. It could be the East of Scotland Championships or it could be a Revolution meeting or something that’s not crucial for medals or for funding and she wants to win every single race.
“Then you have athletes like Jason who will say, ‘I’m putting everything and all eggs in one basket before the Olympic Games and what happens before and after doesn’t matter but that one race is what counts’.
“So it’s not as if it’s a policy decision (from Team GB) to say, ‘we’re only going to focus on the Olympic Games’ because they don’t, they want to win the worlds, it’s great to be seen to be successful in between times.
“But everything evens out for the Olympic Games and that’s when you see the true level.”
– The Laureus World Sports Awards celebrate the most remarkable men and women from the world of sport along with their achievements from the previous calendar year. The Awards also showcase the work of Laureus Sport for Good, a charity which uses the power of sport to end violence, discrimination and disadvantage.
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