Dame Laura Kenny’s retirement from cycling means she will not add to her five Olympic gold medals and ends the record-breaking run she shared with her husband Sir Jason Kenny.

Here, the PA news agency looks at the pair’s achievements on the biggest stage.

Laura Kenny

Kenny won the team pursuit and omnium double at both London 2012 and Rio 2016, under her maiden name Laura Trott, and when she and Katie Archibald won the Madison at Tokyo 2020 she became the first British woman to win gold at three separate Games.

Silver in the team pursuit also meant she won multiple medals at three successive Games, a feat matched by only Charlotte Dujardin among British women – the equestrian star has three gold, a silver and two bronze to her name.

That team pursuit was, remarkably, the first time Kenny had entered an Olympic event and not won gold. A subsequent sixth place in the omnium and the decision not to continue to Paris this summer leaves her final medal count at five golds and one silver.

She ends her career with seven World Championship, 13 European Championship and two Commonwealth Games gold medals, and 42 total medals across those events and the Olympics.

Jason Kenny

If Laura Kenny is Britain’s highest-achieving female Olympian, her husband holds the overall national record.

Jason Kenny won gold in the team sprint at three straight Olympics, from Beijing 2008 through to Rio. He doubled up with the individual sprint in London and made it a treble in Rio with the keirin.

Winning the latter event in Tokyo gave him a British-record seventh gold, taking him ahead of his long-time sprint team-mate Sir Chris Hoy.

Silver in the individual sprint in Beijing and the team event in Tokyo gives him nine Olympic medals in total – one ahead of Sir Bradley Wiggins as the leading Briton, with Hoy on seven.

Jason Kenny won 28 major medals in total, with three additional golds at the World Championships and one at the European Championships.

Dame Laura Kenny has always been able to light up any room she steps into, and never more than when she is in a velodrome.

Bright and bubbly, she became the face of British Cycling’s more than decade-long dominance on the track from the moment Kenny, then Trott, announced her talent to the wider world at London 2012.

The two Olympic gold medals she won barely 20 miles from her childhood home in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, were the first of five that made her Britain’s most successful female Olympian, and the most successful female Olympic cyclist on the planet.

But on Monday she announced it will be five and out, calling time on her decorated career at the age of 31, ending outside chances she may ride at the Paris Games.

Already in a hurry, Laura Trott was born a month prematurely with a collapsed lung. Diagnosed with asthma, she was advised to take up sport to regulate her breathing.

She started trampolining but switched to cycling after mum Glenda began riding to lose weight. Laura and her sister Emma went along – and both made careers out of it, Emma as a road rider and coach, and Laura as one of the greatest track stars the sport has ever seen.

She started winning races at her local track, Welwyn, aged eight, and got hooked on success. A world junior omnium title earned her a place on Britain’s senior roster and aged only 18 she was part of the team pursuit squad that won European gold.

Having set herself a goal of making the Rio Games in 2016, Kenny was on her way to the London Olympics.

There was an inevitability to winning team pursuit gold – the world record was broken all six times Trott teamed up with Joanna Rowsell and Dani King (nee Rowe). Two days later, Kenny came from behind to claim omnium gold as well.

That made her Britain’s second double champion of the Games after Jason Kenny. A day later the pair were seen kissing as they sat behind David Beckham at the beach volleyball. Cycling had its new golden couple.

After they replicated their London success in Rio – Laura winning two golds and Jason three – they got married close to home in Cheshire.

They say opposites attract, and if Jason is a self-professed “miserable sod”, Laura is the charismatic marketer’s dream with the success to match. “It was just like yin and yang,” Laura said.

Thoughts like this tumble out of Kenny every time she sits down for an interview. She might want to talk about her love of Bruce Springsteen’s music, or how she once saw her grandmother’s ghost, or how she and Jason ended up adopting a family of ducks that came into their garden.

But she is just as open about the challenges she has faced, and recent years have been an emotional rollercoaster.

A year after Rio, Laura gave birth to son Albie. While Jason quietly retired – a decision he reversed before even announcing it – Laura was clear she intended to return in time for Tokyo.

She did so, but perhaps needed the Covid-enforced postponement of the Games to recover from a string of injuries suffered in early 2020. In Tokyo, Britain’s dominance in the velodrome came under increasing threat, and they settled for silver in the team pursuit.

Kenny’s fifth gold came alongside Katie Archibald in the first ever women’s Madison at an Olympics, but she lost her omnium crown after a heavy crash in the scratch race.

That disappointment was nothing compared to the trauma that was to come. In November, Kenny suffered a miscarriage. Then in January she had an ectopic pregnancy and lost a fallopian tube during emergency surgery.

She did not reveal either until she had just won team pursuit silver at the Nations Cup in Glasgow, but in characteristic fashion she spoke openly of the impact – how she questioned her future in the sport but used cycling as a her safety blanket.

She surprised herself with Commonwealth Gold in the summer of 2022 before the healthy arrival of a second son, Monty, in 2023 gave Kenny the sign she needed to know it was time to retire.

Dame Laura Kenny has announced her retirement from cycling.

The 31-year-old leaves the scene as Britain’s most successful female Olympian, and the most successful female cyclist in Olympic history.

She was also the first British woman to win golds at three consecutive Games after her titles at the 2012, 2016 and 2020 Olympics.

Here, the PA news agency looks at Kenny’s five Olympic golds.

Team Pursuit – London 2012

There was something inevitable about Great Britain’s win in the women’s team pursuit. Including pre-Olympic races and the event itself, in the six times Kenny, then Trott, had joined Joanna Rowsell and Dani King (now Rowe) in riding the event, they broke the world record six times. They lowered the bar to three minutes 15.669 seconds in qualifying, shaved off another second in the first round, and then won gold in a time of 3:14.051.

Omnium – London 2012

A day after the team pursuit, Trott was back on track for the first three events of the omnium. She led after day one, having won both the flying lap and elimination race, but was worried 10th place in the points race would cost her. “I messaged my dad halfway through the omnium saying, ‘I can’t do this, I’ve messed this up’,” she later said. “He is always that person that keeps me calm.” Whatever he said in reply, it worked. Although American Sarah Hammer nosed in front after the individual pursuit and doubled her advantage in the scratch race, Trott won the closing time trial to claim gold.

Team Pursuit – Rio 2016

The women’s team pursuit was expanded from three riders per team and three kilometres to four riders and four kilometres in Rio, but there was no change at the top of the standings as Trott and Rowsell Shand teamed up with Katie Archibald and Elinor Barker to retain Britain’s title. And there was a familiar pattern too as they broke the world record in all three rounds, eventually winning in a time of four minutes 10.236 seconds.

Omnium – Rio 2016

After her tense battle with Hammer in London, Trott left absolutely no doubt about who would win omnium gold in Rio. She was either first or second in the opening five events, and so went into the closing points race with a 24-point cushion over her American rival which would never be threatened. “To do what I did in London and to come here and do it again, honestly I cannot believe it,” she said.

Madison – Tokyo 2020

The Tokyo Olympics were a very different affair for Kenny for many different reasons. She gave birth to son Albie a year after Rio, returning to competition in 2018. But she suffered a string of crashes in the run up to the Games, and had they not been postponed for a year amid the pandemic, it is not clear she would have made it. Britain’s dominance was under threat and they had to settle for silver in the team pursuit. But Kenny and team-mate Katie Archibald had done their homework for the first women’s Madison to be staged at an Olympics and bossed the race, winning the first three sprints and then extending their advantage after the Dutch pair of Kirsten Wild and Amy Pieters, reigning world champions, were caught in a crash with 70 laps remaining.

Dame Laura Kenny, Britain’s most successful female Olympic athlete, has announced her cycling retirement.

The 31-year-old has won five Olympic gold medals in her decorated career and had been expected to compete at the Paris Games this summer, but she told the BBC it was time to stop.

Speaking to BBC Breakfast, Kenny said: “I always knew deep down I would know when was the right time. I have had an absolute blast but now is the time for me to hang that bike up.”

Kenny and her husband, Sir Jason Kenny – Britain’s most decorated Olympian – last year welcomed a second son to their family and she said spending time at home was proving more and more alluring to her.

“It’s been in my head a little while, the sacrifices of leaving the children and your family at home is really quite big and it really is a big decision to make,” she added.

“More and more, I was struggling to do that. More people asking me what races was I doing, what training camps was I going on – I didn’t want to go ultimately and that’s what it came down to.

“I knew the minute I was getting those feelings. Once I said to Jase, ‘I don’t think I want to ride a bike anymore’, I started to feel relief.”