Can elite sport damage women’s fertility?

Dame Laura, 32, gave her body to cycling for more than a decade. She is Britain’s most successful female athlete.

“Every training session I went in there to give 100%, every race I went in there to give 100%.

“I took it to the limit – if I wasn’t sick after a race I’d be like, ‘Did I try hard enough?’”

That absolute commitment was rewarded in the velodrome. Two golds at the London 2012 Olympics were followed by two more at Rio 2016.

She married fellow cycling phenomenon Jason Kenny later that year and the couple welcomed their first baby, Albie, in 2017. She then secured another gold and silver medal at the Tokyo Olympics (held in 2021).

She miscarried in November 2021 and five months later had an ectopic pregnancy, in which the embryo implants outside of the womb, requiring emergency surgery.

“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.

She had never really worried about her own fertility before. Conceiving Albie had been straightforward, and that pregnancy went smoothly. And thankfully, she would successfully give birth to another son, Monty, in July 2023.

But – as Dame Laura began to talk publicly about her baby losses – other athletes told her they had been through the same thing.

It has left a nagging question – could elite sport have a damaging impact on the fertility of female athletes?

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