Laura Kenny has vital missions to accomplish this week in Glasgow. Forget the acquisition of medals at the European Championships or any potential pitfalls en route. A mere trifling sideline. “I don’t have time to think about that,” the four-times Olympic champion declared. Not with a toddler bringing chaos to what was once, for the Englishwoman and her husband Jason, the most controlled and formulaic of existences.

“Albie is running around like you wouldn’t believe at the minute. So I’m making sure he’s not pulling the wires out of the wall or sticking stuff in plug sockets, rather than thinking about riding around in circles.”

However we are rapidly learning Kenny remains formidable. Despite five interruptions to her sleep from her firstborn overnight, the 26‑year‑old was wide awake on Sunday in picking up her second gold of these European Championships with victory in the elimination race, 17 riders picked off one by one, before Germany’s Anna Knauer was the last to be cut adrift.

It was her 12th continental crown, eight years after a team pursuit gold in Pruszkow announced her arrival to a wider audience. “I shouldn’t have even gone to Poland, but Joanna Rowsell got injured,” she said. “That was the beginning of it for me. That was my first international competition with Team GB at senior level, and it sort of just went from there. If you’d asked me then would I be a mum with four gold medals and 12 European golds, I would have been like ’nah, that’s not the way my life’s going to pan out’, and here we are.”

It put her one European triumph ahead of Katie Archibald, who can draw level once more if she defends her omnium title on Monday. Number 13 for both might arrive when they link up in the madison on Tuesday. “I’m glad I’ve done a group race now because I was a bit worried,” Kenny said.

Elsewhere, Britain’s Oliver Wood was 10th in the 40km points race, won by Poland’s Wojciech Pszczolarski. Jack Carlin and Phil Hindes both advanced into the quarter-finals of the men’s sprint on Monday. In the women’s road race, Dani Rowe was the leading Briton in 10th with Italy’s Marta Bastianelli breaking decisively to take gold in 3hr 28min 15sec.

Meanwhile, Great Britain finished with a total of four medals at the European Rowing Championships in Motherwell. Sam Mottram took third place in the lightweight single sculls behind Switzerland’s Michael Schmid and Italy’s Martino Goretti. While Jack Beaumont and Harry Leask, paired together on the eve of the event, landed bronze in the double sculls as France held off Romania for gold.