Katy Marchant retires from elite cycling after 13-year career

Katy Marchant has retired from elite track cycling after 13 years with Great Britain, ending a career that brought her Olympic team sprint gold at Paris 2024 and an individual sprint bronze at Rio 2016. The 33-year-old said she no longer wanted to make the commitments needed for another Olympic campaign in Los Angeles in 2028, despite having previously set that as a goal.

“I’ve achieved more than I could have ever dreamed of achieving,” Marchant told Cycling Weekly and other media in a round-table interview. She said the decision had not been difficult, though she had asked herself whether she should continue. “I know what it takes to push on for another two years,” she said, adding that she was proud of her career but did not want to keep making the choices required to reach Los Angeles.

A decision on her own terms

Marchant said she wanted to leave while she still felt capable of competing, rather than because she had been forced to stop. “I never wanted to walk away from this sport because I had to, because I felt like I’d overstayed my welcome, or because physically I wasn’t capable anymore,” she told Cycling Weekly. After 13 years, she said, she wanted to finish her career in the way she chose.

Her thoughts about retirement began at the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. According to the Press Association report carried by the Guardian, Marchant had a day off after two successful days of racing and experienced what she called “this funny feeling.” She spoke with her husband, Rob, before returning for the final races and taking more time to settle on her decision.

From Rio bronze to Paris gold

Marchant joined the Great Britain squad in 2013 after competing as a heptathlete in her teens, according to Cycling Weekly. Three years after taking up track cycling, she won individual sprint bronze on her Olympic debut in Rio. She went on to represent Britain at three Olympic Games, including Tokyo, which took place in 2021.

For a period after teammate Becky James retired in 2017, Marchant was the sole senior rider in Britain’s women’s sprint programme, Cycling Weekly reported. She qualified alone for the Tokyo Games. Her later account of that period gives context to the significance she places on the team that developed around her before Paris.

In Paris in 2024, Marchant joined Finucane and Sophie Capewell to win the women’s team sprint. Cycling Weekly reported that the trio also set a world record. Team England says they became the first women’s squad to win both the Olympic and world team sprint titles in the same year. Marchant’s 2024 results also included the European 500m time trial title.

Those results made Paris the high point of a longer medal record, rather than her first breakthrough. The Press Association report lists two world bronze medals and two European silver medals alongside her 2024 titles. Team England records another team sprint bronze for Marchant at the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast.

Two returns to the track

Marchant gave birth to her first son, Arthur, in 2022 and returned to racing in 2023. Team England says she missed the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games because she was having her first child. Her return preceded the Olympic and world team sprint victories of 2024, adding another chapter to a career that had already included medals across three Olympic cycles.

Her racing was interrupted again after a crash into the stands at the UCI Track Champions League in December 2024. Cycling Weekly reported that she broke an arm and two fingers, then paused racing in 2025 and had her second son, Walter. She returned to major competition at Glasgow 2026, where Team England records a silver medal for her in the team sprint.

Marchant said she took pride in helping to build Britain’s women’s sprint programme, even as she felt some sadness at leaving it. She also hoped that returning to high-level competition after having two children would show other mothers in sport what was possible. Those are her reflections on her career, rather than a forecast of what the British squad will do next.

Asked by Cycling Weekly about life after racing, Marchant said she had not thought far ahead. She mentioned driving tractors over the summer and needing to find something for herself beyond competition. Her announcement establishes the end of her elite racing career; she did not set out a detailed next role.