{"id":546036,"date":"2026-04-23T07:42:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T07:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/546036\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T07:42:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T07:42:09","slug":"we-lost-two-babies-so-many-female-athletes-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/546036\/","title":{"rendered":"We lost two babies. So many female athletes do"},"content":{"rendered":"

The former cyclist Dame Laura Kenny<\/a>, 33, has won five Olympic gold medals and one silver. In 2016, she became the first British woman to win four Olympic titles. She was made a dame in 2022 and retired in 2024. She is married to former cyclist Sir Jason Kenny. They have three children and live in Cheshire.<\/p>\n

The Olympics 2028? I\u2019m well past my sell-by date. I don\u2019t think I would come out of retirement. Every now and again I do think, could I? People do. But I\u2019ve never had that feeling of it being unfinished.<\/p>\n

Speaking about baby loss wasn\u2019t easy. But it might have helped someone else. After the Tokyo Olympics, we lost two babies. So many athletes came to me saying they\u2019d been in the same boat. Does what we put our bodies through take a toll on whether or not we can fall pregnant? I don\u2019t know. More people are now aware of training around a woman\u2019s cycle \u2014 it\u2019s definitely got better.<\/p>\n

No one asks the dad if they\u2019re all right. I think Jason really struggled and still does. He can\u2019t really talk about it, even to this day. He will say it didn\u2019t happen to him \u2014 it was my body going through it. But the emotional effect happens to both of you.<\/p>\n

\"BRITAIN-ROYAL-AWARD-CYCLING\"The Kennys after receiving their knighthood and damehood, May 2022AFP<\/p>\n

Everything was developed around men and how they use a saddle. My saddle sore was really bad. The skin was split. I went to our doctor and said, \u201cI don\u2019t think the pain that I\u2019m experiencing is normal.\u201d Just because most female bike riders have it, this doesn\u2019t make it normal. It just means that we\u2019re not doing anything about it. It was unpleasant, but I was pushing through it because I had to ride my bike. We had some funding to work on a saddle and the pad in the cycling shorts in 2014, but before that nobody had really looked into it for women.<\/p>\n

What a role model Keely Hodgkinson<\/a> is for my baby girl. She\u2019s not afraid to put her opinion across. She clearly loves fashion and make-up and she\u2019s not scared to say so.<\/p>\n

When our second little boy came, I didn\u2019t want anyone else to look after him. I had longed for this little boy for so long. Trying to conceive was hell. Getting the damehood was everything that I could have ever hoped for in my career, and so it felt like a really natural ending. I wanted to be at home with my children.<\/p>\n

\"OlympicsThe couple sitting behind David Beckham at the Olympic beach volleyball in 2012Getty images<\/p>\n

\"OlympicsAfter winning Olympic gold (and setting a new world record) in the women\u2019s team pursuit at the London OlympicsGetty images<\/p>\n

Adam Peaty<\/a> is one to watch at the Olympics. He\u2019s got longevity. [Cyclists] Matthew Richardson<\/a> and Emma Finucane<\/a> are incredible athletes and they\u2019ll both do three events, so there\u2019s a chance that they could win more than one.<\/p>\n

We won the Olympics, but it was like we\u2019d won The X Factor. Because the London 2012 Olympics were really unique \u2014 everyone watched them, not just a few sports fans. It was overnight fame. The night before, everything was private in our life. You would never think that we\u2019d both win both our events. We were really lucky because social media wasn\u2019t as massive as it is now, so Jason and I could make mistakes, be silly, go out and celebrate without photos being plastered everywhere.<\/p>\n

Prince William<\/a> said, \u2018I\u2019m really sorry to hear what your family is going through with baby loss.\u2019 It meant a lot to me that he brought it up, because it\u2019s not spoken about. We have to talk about these things more. As an athlete, I felt like my body had failed. It\u2019s such a lonely place to be when you\u2019re going through it.<\/p>\n

\"CyclingWinning gold at the Olympics Rio de Janeiro, 2016Getty images<\/p>\n

I was sick at Bradley Wiggins\u2019s feet. That is one of the most embarrassing things that has happened to me.<\/p>\n

So many women stop breastfeeding because it\u2019s hard to do it when you\u2019re out. I was asked if I could go to the toilet to feed Albie and whether feeding him at the table was appropriate. That wound me up.<\/p>\n

I won the Commonwealth Games right after having an ectopic pregnancy. The ectopic pregnancy was one of the scariest things I\u2019ve had to go through. It\u2019s traumatic.<\/p>\n

Me and running are not compatible. I would not even say that I have been training for my marathon [she is running the TCS London Marathon<\/a> for the Ectopic Pregnancy Trust]. It\u2019s been a nightmare. The pain I\u2019ve been in. I\u2019m probably going to \u201crun, walk, run\u201d the entire thing. There\u2019s no shame in that \u2014 I\u2019m doing it for a great cause.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m yin and Jason is yang. I\u2019m outgoing \u2014 I\u2019ll speak to anyone. Jason is the opposite. <\/p>\n

The London Marathon is on Sunday, April 26. Coverage on BBC1 from 8.30am<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The former cyclist Dame Laura Kenny, 33, has won five Olympic gold medals and one silver. In 2016,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":546037,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-546036","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=546036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546036\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/546037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}