British Olympic cycling champion Laura Kenny said that, since the Tokyo Games, she had a miscarriage, COVID symptoms that merited a hospital trip, an ectopic pregnancy and lost a fallopian tube, sharing her personal story on social media to support others.
“It’s been the hardest few months I’ve ever had to go through,” she posted. “Jason and I fell pregnant immediately after the games and we were absolutely chuffed to bits. But unfortunately in November when commentating at the track champions league I miscarried our baby at 9 weeks. I’ve never felt so lost and sad. It felt like a part of me had been torn away. I grabbed for my safety blanket, bike riding! I found myself back in my happy place training again. I then caught Covid in mid January and found myself feeling really very unwell. I didn’t have typical covid symptoms and I just felt I needed to go to hospital. A day later I found myself in A&E being rushed to theatre because I was having an ectopic pregnancy. Scared doesn’t even come close. I lost a falopion tube that day. I’ve always known I was tough, but sometimes life pushes you to an unbearable limit. If it wasn’t for Jason and Albie getting me through the day to day I’d have been broken.”
Kenny, 29, is married to fellow British Olympic track cycling champion Jason Kenny. They have a 4-year-old son, Albie.
“It feels ‘brave’ talking about miscarriage and baby loss,” was later posted on Kenny’s Instagram stories. “But it shouldn’t be. Jason and I felt lonely going through it and like we had taken the happiness away from our families by not telling them. They didn’t get the joy of thinking another baby was on the way, only the sad. Miscarriage is a lot more common than people realise which is why we have decided to share our heartbreak, to help support others.”
She suggested her followers could share their stories in the comments of her post.
“I know it would help us which means it will also probably help a lot more people,” she wrote.
Kenny competed on Thursday for the first time since the Tokyo Olympics.
In Tokyo, Kenny earned madison gold with Katie Archibald and team pursuit silver, giving her five career gold medals and one silver. She shares the British female record for total medals with equestrian Charlotte Dujardin and holds the British female gold-medal record outright.
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