Britain’s most decorated Olympian Jason Kenny is “not very optimistic” of being at Paris 2024 because of injuries.
Track cyclist Kenny, 33, who has nine Olympic medals, won his seventh gold and his second silver at Tokyo 2020.
Kenny cannot remember the last time he trained without it “really hurting” and is now focusing only on being in “good enough shape to properly train”.
“A lot of it (whether he competes at Paris) is down to if I can – I might not have a choice,” he added.
“Before the Olympics I was really struggling, I couldn’t squat or train how I wanted to, I had bad knees.
“I’ll be building up really slowly, making sure I can do enough volume to train properly – and if I can’t, then I won’t even bother trying I don’t think, because I won’t be able to be competitive if I can’t train properly.
“I’m not very optimistic (about Paris 2024) if I’m perfectly honest, because I can’t remember the last time I managed to train without it really hurting.”
Kenny became the first Briton to win seven Olympic gold medals with victory in the men’s keirin at Tokyo 2020, making him the country’s most decorated Olympian.
He also won silver in the team sprint.
He says he “might not have a choice” when it comes to calling time on his illustrious career.
“We’ve got such a good team around us and I’ve really thrown myself into working with the physios,” he said.
“I’m learning to squat all over again and hopefully I’ll be in better shape for it. I give it to the end of the year, where I want to be able to train at a good level, so I’ve got until Christmas really before we re-evaluate. It is very much all up in the air.”
Kenny, who walked away from cycling after the 2016 Rio Olympics before returning in 2017, said he had “learned from that” and was a “little bit more relaxed and less definite” about his decision.
