Olympian returns to family life as 'cricket wife'

Katy Marchant (above left) with Sophie Capewell and Emma Finucane

Olympic champion track cyclist Katy Marchant said victory in Paris was the "absolute pinnacle" of her career as she returned to her home village near Leeds.

Friends and family held a homecoming party at the cricket club in Barwick-in-Elmet where her husband plays and where she helps to make the teas.

The 31-year-old won gold with Sophie Capewell and Emma Finucane just two years after she gave birth to her son Arthur.

She said the win made all the "choices and sacrifices" she had to make as a mother worthwhile.

Katy Marchant said she tried to balance being a mum to a two-year-old and being an Olympic athlete

Marchant, Finucane and Capewell set a new world record time in the team sprint of 45.186 seconds to beat New Zealand.

She said she was still "riding a wave" since being watched by her son in the velodrome after struggling with the time away from her family to train.

"I have loved talking about it to everybody that I can because it helps to relive the feeling that I had - it just felt so special," she said.

Her return to normality has been making sandwiches and cups of tea for her husband Robert's cricket team while Arthur plays in the nets.

"There's no place like home. I'm a cricket wife, you've got to make the sandwiches on a Saturday, right?"

Track cyclist Katy Marchant is being celebrated in the east Leeds village where she grew up

Marchant said she wanted her son to be "sporty" as he grows up.

"It provides so many opportunities in life and I'm forever grateful for what sport has given me," she said.

However, she said that as a parent the hours spent away from home were hard.

"That's been really difficult and something I struggle with a lot. Feeling the guilt of thinking my job now is to be a mum and I should be at home looking after Arthur.

"But as he gets older he's starting to understand and is more involved and wants to watch Mummy ride her bike," she added.

Marchant said for now she was living her "absolute dream", but felt she had "so much more to give".

She said she would take a few days to decompress and then go back into training ahead of the World Championships in eight weeks.

Marchant, who went to school in nearby Allerton Bywater, was a GB junior heptathlete who was persuaded to switch to cycling after a coach noticed her impressive times on a static bike.

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