'Incredibly proud' - Yorkshire super mum Katy Marchant ends glittering track cycling career
Another of Yorkshire’s great Olympians has called time on her career.
Katy Marchant from Leeds - who won an Olympic gold medal two years after the birth of her first child - is retiring from track cycling at the age of 33.
She had been planning on competing at a fourth Games in Los Angeles in two years time and defending the team sprint title she won in Paris alongside Emma Finucane and Sophie Capewell, during a year in which she also won world and European titles.
But she has decided the time is right to pass on the torch.
“I’ve achieved more than I could ever have dreamed of achieving,” said Marchant, who also won a bronze medal in the individual sprint as a 23-year-old in Rio a decade ago.
“It just feels really strange. It’s not been a difficult decision. Don’t get me wrong, there’s been moments where I’ve thought, ‘could I just, should I just, what if I just?’ But I know what it takes to push on for another two years.
“I’m incredibly proud of where I’ve got to and what I’ve done. I just don’t want to make those choices anymore to keep doing what it takes to get to LA.”
She had outlined a plan to get to a fourth Games earlier this year despite having given birth to a second son - and also helped England win a team sprint silver in the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.
But, after finishing fifth in the individual keirin, she revealed: “I had a day off after two pretty successful days racing. And I just had this funny feeling.
“I never wanted to walk away from this sport because I had to, because I felt like I’d overstayed my welcome or physically I wasn’t capable anymore,” she added.
“I’ve written the story for the last 13 years and I wanted it to finish it the way I wanted to finish. My dreams came true.”
Marchant was a late-comer to cycling. The Brigshaw High School pupil was actually an international standard junior heptathlete, training alongside Jessica Ennis-Hill under Toni Minichiello at Sheffield’s English Institute of Sport.
She was recommended to British Cycling in early 2013 due to her power output on exercise bikes, and she made the switch after a successful trial.
Three years later she was a European junior medallist and more importantly, an Olympic bronze medallist having been the only sprinter to qualify to represent Great Britain in Rio.
She ploughed a lone furrow in the sprint disciplines for much of her career, arguably only benefitting from the younger women she inspired to perform alongside her after the birth of her two children.
Marchant won 10 medals across Olympic, world, European and Commonwealth Games, eight of them coming after childbirth and her 30th birthday.
“There’s a small part of me that’s a little bit sad I’m not going to be part of that anymore, but at the same time I carry a lot of pride that I helped build that,” she said of the legacy she leaves in women’s sprinting.
“I’m incredibly proud that I got to do those things and hopefully pave the way not just for cyclists, but also mums in sport to be able to achieve that.”
Additional reporting: Ian Parker, PA