For Dame Laura Kenny, pressure is a privilege when it comes to banging the drum for women in sport.
Britain’s most decorated female Olympian wears the visibility that comes with such a storied career heavily as she seeks to provide representation to women who might otherwise see no place for themselves in sport.
Kenny has spoken openly about her experiences of miscarriage and motherhood and is currently pregnant with her third child.
The five-time Olympic champion used an appearance as guest editor on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme to explore elite sport’s impact on fertility and wants to keep using her profile to make change.
“I feel really privileged that by being a bike rider I've had these other opportunities to actually speak about things that I care about,” she said.
“You've got to understand that people with a platform have to talk about these things. I've started to learn that a lot more recently.
“There are a lots of things I care about that if I don't talk about it, or if other well-known female athletes don't talk about it, it's not going to get spoken about.
“I also do feel a pressure to use my platform because I want to help on so many things.”
Such issues have always featured prominently in Kenny’s life and while her progression into the media may have appeared natural, that pathway was never certain.
In fact, Kenny had no idea what life after cycling would look like until she had left the saddle for good.
“It definitely wasn't a route that I planned to go down,” she said. “I rang the BBC saying I was going to retire and then they rang me back asking if I would be a pundit.
“So many people say when you retire, have a plan but I never planned to retire. I just woke up one day and I said to Jason [Kenny], ‘I don't want to do this anymore. I haven't got the commitment to do this. I don't want to leave the kids.’
“But I love the punditry. I like talking and I can talk about anything. I like being able to be Laura the person and that's what I learned at the Olympics. It was the first time that I was representing myself and no one else.”
Now, Kenny will be adding another post-retirement string to her bow as she succeeds Dame Denise Lewis as President of Commonwealth Games England.
The Commonwealth Games have played an important role in Kenny’s career, having first competed in New Delhi in 2010 where she first got on the radar of British Cycling.
“Competing there got me on the Olympic longlist for London 2012,” she said.
“I wouldn't have gone on that long list, I don't believe, if they hadn't seen me perform there.”
She would go on to surge into British hearts with double gold at London 2012 before following that up with gold at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in 2014.
While golds at a further two Olympics would follow, Kenny ranks her final victory at Birmingham 2022 as one of her finest.
Having miscarried in 2021 and struggled to find her confidence on the track, she finished second to last in her targeted points race before competing in the scratch race two days later.
“The one that is special to me was Birmingham, I would say it ranks higher than the Olympic medals,” said Kenny.
“It was a journey that I wouldn't want anyone to go through but it was just a journey that I can now sit back and say I'm so proud of.”
Kenny will take those experiences into her new role at Team England to support elite athletes, with the same drive that informs her advocacy in the media also informing her desire to help out in grassroots sport.
“I've always said I've wanted to give back somehow to sport. It's given me so much, it now gives my children so much and this role is where I see myself giving back,” she said.
“A huge topic that I'd love to get my teeth stuck into is balancing being a mum with a job and showing people you can still do it.
“But grassroots for me also means children and the younger generation. What scares me is there are children out there who don't do any activity at all.
“I don't believe that the curriculum offers enough for those kids. It's expensive so can we do it within a time when they're already there. Can they do it during registration?
“It’s those kinds of projects that I'm hugely motivated to help women, mums and children stay in sport.”
