Team GB cycling gold medallist Laura Kenny has said she is relieved the Tokyo Olympics were postponed as she ‘wouldn’t have been ready’ following two crashes earlier this year.

She fractured her shoulder at the World Championships in January but refused to have surgery so she could compete at the World Track Championships a month later. She then crashed at the track event, where she need stitches to her face.

“It was incredible pain but, as an athlete, you just push through it," she told The Telegraph.

“To then hear ten days later that the Olympics were being postponed for a year, I was like, ‘I am so happy about this.’

"Not happy in the sense that Covid-19 has been absolutely horrendous, but in terms of my career, happy that it was postponed. I just wouldn’t have been ready for a madison.”

Previous to the Olympic postponement, she said she wanted to continue in competitions this year as she wanted to perform well in Tokyo - not only for her career but for all the training time she has used which is time away from her son Albert.

She has been able to spend quality time with her three year-old son and husband and Olympian Jason Kenny during lockdown.

She said their son has taken up a common family skill - cycling.

“Before lockdown, he [Albert] was just not interested at all in his bike. But because Jase was looking for things for him to do, we thought, ‘Let’s just get him a bike and see what happens’.

“We had the Strider – one which doesn’t have pedals and is a balance bike – we had that from day one, because it’s like a rocking horse. We had him on that for ages but we got him a bike a month ago, and he just took to it.”