Elite sport may have caused my ‘out of control’ body to suffer miscarriage, says Dame Laura Kenny

Elite sport may have caused her ‘out of control’ body to suffer a miscarriage, cycling champion Laura Kenny has said.

Dame Laura, Britain’s most successful female athlete, boasts five gold medals and a silver from three separate Olympic games.

She says she ‘gave 100 per cent’ to every training session and race for more than a decade, even questioning if she had worked hard enough if she did not throw up after a workout.

But her commitment may have had an impact on her fertility, she has revealed.

After marrying fellow cycling phenomenon Jason Kenny and welcoming their first child in 2017, she miscarried in November 2021 and had an ectopic pregnancy five months later.

This occurs when a fertilised egg implants and grows outside of the womb – usually in one of the fallopian tubes – requiring emergency surgery.

Laura Kenny of Team Great Britain and Holly Edmondston of Team New Zealand sprint during the Women’s Omnium points race

Pictured: Laura Kenny ‘s children Monty and Albie – Albie was born in 2017 and Monty in 2023

‘Everything was a shock – I went from being so in control of my body to being so out of control,’ she told Radio 4’s Today programme.

‘Was my body just running on empty, and then it said, ‘Well, hang on, there’s no way we can do this?’

While she successfully gave birth to another son, Monty, in July 2023, she had started to talk publicly about her baby losses.

Other athletes soon revealed they had been through the same thing – raising questions as to whether elite sport could have a damaging impact on fertility.

Dr Emma O’Donnell, an exercise physiologist at Loughborough University, said the lifestyle of a professional athlete puts a unique strain on the human body.

Dame Laure Kenny hugs Myleene Klass on Loose Women during an interview

Laura Kenny interviews her husband (R) Jason Kenny for BBC TV television Paris 2024 Olympic Games

Training at their level burns an incredibly high number of calories and as a result, athletes often have very little body fat.

If they don’t eat enough food to fuel their workouts then issues with menstrual cycles – such as periods stopping for months or even years – are ‘very common’, Dr O’Donnell said.

The leading idea if that having a baby is so energy-intensive that the brain shuts off reproduction if it thinks there isn’t enough spare energy available, she told the BBC.

In the UK around one in every 90 pregnancies is ectopic – the equivalent of around 11,000 per year.

While it is still unclear why they occur, inflammation and scar tissue in the fallopian tubes can increase the risk.

Professor Geeta Nargund, a consultant at St George’s Hospital and medical director of Create Fertility, said she doesn’t see a ‘direct link’ between sports and a higher risk of an ectopic pregnancy.

However, she said there was a potential link between too much intense exercise in the first three months of pregnancy and miscarriage.