They've called recent months the Great Resignation but, perhaps, Sir Jason Kenny has pulled off the 'greatest resignation' yet.
Sports stars often aspire to that prized idiom of ‘quitting while ahead’, though in truth very few actually achieve it, expectation and reality rarely aligning.
Kenny has ticked in the box - and in some style, though he isn’t going very far, determined to follow his record-breaking Olympic deeds - seven golds and two silvers - as a coach for those that follow in his wheel. At 33, though 'starting to creak', the most successful Olympic cyclist is far from done with his sport.
It seemed rather fitting that up in the rarefied hills of Izu, under the shadow of Mount Fuji, that the final chapter of Kenny's racing career was written.
Thank you for the memories, @JasonKenny107 🤩#TeamGB pic.twitter.com/jzS4V0Y0KT
— Team GB (@TeamGB) February 24, 2022
In this remote outpost of the Tokyo Olympics, a super-fast Shinkansen and a long and winding bus journey from Tokyo, Kenny did what he does best, riding his bike faster than anyone else and making history.
They take keirin racing seriously in Japan, indeed this velodrome was the national school for the close-quarters sprint race in which thrills and spills are measured equally.
The keirin was invented as a betting sport here and when the money is down, punter’s pal Kenny usually delivers, even if he’d given himself a distinctly underwhelming pre-race report card. After all, odds are just there to be defied.
Kenny sprung clear from his rivals with three laps to go and hammered down the power, catching them all napping to open up a huge advantage, tactical genius of quite breathtaking audacity.
By the last lap they were closing fast but Kenny was sniffing history and smelling the finish line. If you could write a race to go out on, this would be it, it was a show of brilliance that had rivals shaking their heads in admiration.
"I owe all of my success to being in the right place at the right time," he said, a humble brag an anathema to Kenny.
“It’s just nice to be compared to those guys that I grew up admiring, it’s really special to be on the same page as them."
Few - except those who really knew him - could have predicted this publicity shy 'lad from Bolton' would become Great Britain's greatest Olympian, when he made his debut in Beijing as a teenager in 2008.
He partnered Chris Hoy and Jamie Staff to team sprint gold, standing awkwardly to the side as they both spoke to media. Days later, he played second fiddle to Hoy in the individual sprint, scoring the first of two Olympic silvers.
By London he was Hoy's equal, winning the team sprint gold again and upgrading that individual silver with a world record ride at a jumping London velodrome.
In an image of that storied summer, he was photographed kissing girlfriend, now wife, Laura Trott, herself a double gold medallist, while watching the beach volleyball. He was shocked to find himself on the front pages, he didn't think anyone would notice or care - though it probably didn't help David Beckham was sitting in the row in front.
By Rio, they were engaged and both won double gold again, taking Kenny level with Hoy on six gold medals.
He toyed with retirement - taking a break from the sport following the birth of son Albie - only to return refreshed for the unique challenges of Tokyo.
Head to head with rivals in the sprint competition, it was clear his explosive pace was not what it was but in the keirin, his competitive instincts and bike handling savvy were still peerless.
Kenny's Olympic journey - which started when his uncle booked a trial session at Manchester's velodrome - is proof positive that athletes really do their best talking on the track. And that self-confessed 'miserable sods' can really have a lot to smile about.
In the weeks after Tokyo, Kenny's achievements were rightly feted and honoured, he picked up the Pat Besford Award for the outstanding performance of 2021 at the British Sports Awards.
Together with wife Laura, he was asked about his future plans, while she talked bullishly about another Games, he looked a bit uneasily at his feet, perhaps his mind already made up.
“She’s nicer than me and she’s also infinitely better looking,” he joked. “She’s just a very inspiring character and totally lovely, which I guess is why I married her. I’m just a bit boring and just focus on racing.”
He retires with seven golds, one more than Hoy, and nine medals, one more than Sir Bradley Wiggins and that's more than Slovenia, Algeria, Portugal, Lithuania, Morocco and the Bahamas. Indeed if he and Laura – five golds – were a country they’d be ahead of Ireland, population 4.9 million, on the all-time medal table.
For now, he remains the most successful Olympian in his own household, time will tell if that changes.
It’s rather nice to imagine Kennyland, with a benevolent Queen Laura and King Kenny on the throne, a country much in the image of its ruling couple – successful, inspiring and thoroughly down to earth, the national currency quite obviously lots of gold, a flash of silver but definitely no bronze.