Jason Kenny has become Britain’s most decorated Olympian after winning gold in the men’s keirin at Tokyo 2020, a victory that has put on hold talk of an end to his glittering career on the track. Kenny, who conceded he was “struggling” during the men’s sprint earlier in the week, now has seven golds, one more than his fellow keirin specialist Sir Chris Hoy. Those, plus two silvers, have also taken him past Sir Bradley Wiggins, who is on eight medals. Having seen Kenny fail to defend his individual and team sprint titles, the five other finalists may have been guilty of underestimating the 33-year-old in a keirin final like no other in the event’s 21-year Olympic history. As the derny peeled off the Izu Velodrome track with three laps remaining, Kenny led the six-man paceline, followed by Matthew Glaetzer, the Australian’s focus on a potential attack from behind. Kenny glanced back and took his chance with an explosive turn of speed that gave him an immediate quarter-lap lead on the rest of the field. The gap had barely shrunk when Kenny crossed the finish line 0.763sec ahead of Azizulhasni Awang of Malaysia. Harrie Lavreysen of the Netherlands took the bronze. The victorious rider removed his helmet, threw it to a Team GB official and soaked up applause from a Japanese crowd that had earlier seen their two medal hopefuls, Yudai Nitta and Yuta Wakimoto, fail to reach the final of the track event their country invented after the second world war. Kenny said he and his Team GB coaches had briefly discussed the possibility of an audacious breakaway. “I said just before the start that ‘if they’re asleep shall we just launch one?’ When the time came and [Glaetzer] left a massive gap, I looked and thought: ‘It’s just too big an opportunity not to try,’ so I launched it and rolled the dice. “Going into the final, I didn’t feel like one of the favourites, and I wouldn’t have been betting on myself, personally. In that instance you’ve got to be prepared to take your chances, and a massive chance came along.” His GB teammate Jack Carlin, who missed out on a place in the final and finished eighth overall, watched open-mouthed from the velodrome pit as Kenny stunned the chasing pack. “Seven gold medals is really special, when you look back on the ones you have already got it seems pretty easy. Then when you try and get more, you remember how hard it is,” Kenny said, laughing at the suggestion that he and his wife, the five-time gold medallist Laura Kenny, could now construct a clock with a gold medal representing each hour. “It is easy to forget the hard work that goes into it. I have been disappointed this week, I haven’t been as competitive as I wanted to be. But in the keirin you can race hard and ride your luck a little bit.” Kenny was speaking as Laura struggled to recover from a crash in the first part of the four-discipline omnium that ensnared multiple riders and injured a trackside official. The Briton, winner of the event in London and Rio and looking for her sixth Olympic gold medal, was one of at least nine riders sent hurtling to the track and among four who were each awarded 16 points after being unable to finish the scratch race. Despite a spirited attempt to make up lost ground over the following three races, Kenny came in sixth. The American Jennifer Valente recovered from a crash in the points race to take gold, with Yumi Kajihara making up for Japan’s keirin disappointment with a silver-medal finish that had spectators on their feet, some waving hinomaru flags, while the homegrown rider lifted her bike above her head in celebration. Kirsten Wild picked up bronze for the Netherlands. In the other medal race of the final day, Canada’s Kelsey Mitchell won the women’s sprint – just two years after taking up cycling – beating Olena Starikova of Ukraine, while Hong Kong’s Lee Wai-sze won bronze. Boris Johnson was among those to congratulate Kenny, describing his new status as Britain’s greatest Olympian as “magnificent” in a tweet. The manner of Kenny’s keirin victory appears to have quelled any thoughts of retirement. “If you’d asked me this morning [if I’d retire] I’d probably have said yes, but I’m feeling good now so I might just carry on,” he said. “Before today I had all but given up, I was counting my career in days and races as opposed to years, but maybe I have bought myself more time now. “In my head this morning I was 33 and getting slower and you’ve got to think from a British cycling point of view you’d rather back someone who’s 20 and getting faster. It was difficult, I’ve not been able to train the way I want to. It might not be up to me at the end of the day. I might not be able to get back to the level I want, but we’ll wait and see.”