One British cyclist you won’t see during next week’s Tour de Yorkshire – or any professional bike race this summer - will be Peter Kennaugh.

His story is a warning to schools and students across the country as the public exam season starts.

Peter is one of the top cyclists in the world, an Olympic Gold Medallist, formerly a key member of British Cycling’s ‘gold medal factory’, a two-time British national champion and winner of several prestigious international road races.

But for some time now he hasn’t been producing the results he and others expect of him.

Earlier this month he announced, with the support of his team, that he was giving up the sport indefinitely to sort himself out mentally.

The standard of top level sport is so high, participants have to be almost superhuman, which means enduring years of incredibly tough physical conditioning that takes over their life, including what they eat and when they sleep.

Those who represent their country have to cope with the greatest stress. Fans can’t accept failure.

Several England international footballers and at least two England Test cricketers have had to stop playing at the top level - including Marcus Trescothick, who had to quit an Ashes tour in the full glare of the media spotlight, which can only have increased his emotional and mental problems. One possible reason why England reached the football World Cup semi-finals last summer was the low expectations beforehand. The pressure was off. Likewise, one reason British Cycling was top of the cycling world for years was its appointment of a psychiatrist to train the cyclists’ minds and teach them how to cope with performance stress. Even that couldn’t help Peter.

The education system today is so geared towards good exam results, the pressure on students can be as intense as those in top-level sport.

Every child knows the job market is fiercely competitive and they will need good school results to get to university or to get the career they want.

Satisfactory isn’t good enough any more. As the population grows, the number of people competing for each apprenticeship, each college or university place, grows too. Today’s teenagers have to aim for the top, for straights As or 1s in their public exams.

The pressure starts young with the Key Stage exams.

Teachers can take the pressure off by telling pupils that C or 3 is a valid result. But will a conscientious child believe that if, in the same breath, the teacher is also telling them to ‘do their best’? Of course, they want to be better than “satisfactory”.

Schools are judged on their pupils’ exam results.

Parents will certainly look at exam results, whether or not they take them into account when choosing their children’s schools. So the pressure comes down from the school management to the classroom for top level results and schools can become organised solely around exams, rather than around children’s education.

Every sport trainer – and every doctor - knows the body needs sufficient rest if it is to reach peak efficiency, so they build breaks into their rigorous training regimes.

It’s the same with the mind. Think how mentally refreshed you feel after a holiday. Teenagers, whose physical body is working overtime as they go through the growing spurt, need mental breaks. They need the pressure taking off.

My advice to any student with exams this year is therefore: Stop. Put down those textbooks, close the laptop and ignore the files of notes. Go and do something totally unconnected with school and academic life, such as have a long run or cycle ride, cook something, have a party, go sightseeing, wander on top of the moors or in a city park. Do something you really enjoy where it doesn’t matter what people think of you.

Give yourself a break. Don’t let exam success or failure take over your life. You’ll come back mentally refreshed and may surprise yourself with your results, like England’s World Cup team. After all, as poet William Henry Davies said: “What is life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?”