THE Tokyo Olympics wasn't meant to end like this for Laura Kenny.
She crashed heavily in the opening scratch race of the women’s omnium and was slow to get up.
All pictures by PA
Though the Chelford cyclist recovered to win the following tempo race, her medal hopes suffered a major blow with an early exit from the elimination race and she eventually finished outside the podium places in sixth, never able to truly get back into the mix after that opening crash.
> READ: Tokyo Olympics closing ceremony honour bestowed on Laura Kenny
“It was a mountain to climb from that point and to be honest the tempo race I just rode off adrenalin,” said Laura.
“I didn’t even get on the rollers, I literally just restarted a bike race. By the time the elimination race came round I was done. I was sat in the chair and I was thinking: ‘I feel sick, my back is killing me’.
“I just went for the easy line because everything didn’t feel right and whenever you’re in that place it is the worst place to be. It didn’t matter how much my head was saying: ‘You need to get out of here’, there was just nothing I could do about it. I was just too tired.”
Somehow her husband Jason shook off his quarter-finals warm-up being interrupted when Laura crashed and went on to win the men's kierin to claim a record-breaking ninth medal for Team GB.
> READ: How Jason Kenny won gold in the men's kierin at Tokyo Olympics
For Laura, she will be able to look back on her own Tokyo success earlier in the week - adding madison gold to team pursuit silver.
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