When Dame Sarah Storey made history with a 17th gold medal last summer it could have been the perfect moment to ride off into the sunset, but Britain’s greatest ever Paralympian had already decided what she called the “lockdown Games” were no way to sign off.
Storey, 43, took victory in the individual pursuit, road race and time trial in Tokyo to break Mike Kenny’s British medal record, but while she rightly celebrated her achievement a Paralympics hugely compromised by the Covid-19 pandemic were not the joyous occasion they should have been.
Husband Barney, the former rider who doubles as her coach and confidant, is usually the first person Sarah speaks to after any race, but he was back at home, 5,000 miles away looking after children Louisa and Charlie, and unreachable for hours.
“My dad has got two photos on the wall of his lounge,” Storey told the PA news agency. “One is from the London Games with 10,000 people behind me at the finish of the road race, and one is from Japan with nobody.
“The two photos are almost the same, my arm is in the same position celebrating, but the difference behind me is stark. It shows how hard those Games were, and how important it is that the people who get you in position to start a race are there with you.”
For Storey, who races both for Great Britain and for her own Storey Racing squad, family is the team that comes first. Race schedules and training camps are devised with an eye on school holidays – and Storey already has diary entries for pretty much every month leading up to the Paris Games in 2024.
“It’s no secret the nucleus of my team is my family,” Storey added. “The way that cycling is, you could be away for a long time and I didn’t have children to leave them behind.
“I want them to benefit from the fact mum is doing a job which isn’t a typical nine-to-five. They’re an integral part of my mindset and how I function.”
Storey said one look at the playbook for the Tokyo Paralympics – the handbook for all participants that outlined the restrictions imposed by the pandemic, including strict bubbles, daily testing and behind-closed-doors competition – convinced her she wanted to continue to Paris “regardless of results”.
But her motivation only grew in Japan as she found that she was, amazingly at her eighth Paralympics as a swimmer and then a cyclist, getting faster – winning individual pursuit gold in a world record time of three minutes 27.057 seconds.
“I wanted to go under 3:30, and I nearly went under 3:27, so I’m still improving,” she said. “Where is that mark? Where is that point?
“I’m almost defying what we thought we knew about athletes in sports science… For me it’s about understanding how far my body is capable of going and adjusting how I train, being able to make good decisions.”
Storey’s achievements in Tokyo saw her nominated for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year, but the recognition has now gone global – she has been shortlisted for the Laureus World Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability Award.
“It’s hard to put into words,” said Storey, who is up against wheelchair tennis players Diede de Groot and Shingo Kunieda, para triathletes Jetze Plat and Susana Rodriguez, and wheelchair athlete Marcel Hug for the honour.
“You see the rest of the athletes on the list and think, ‘Goodness me’. To be on that list and honoured globally is not something you’d ever expect so thank you to everyone who put my name forward.”
:: Dame Sarah Storey has been nominated for the Laureus World Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability Award, at the Laureus World Sports Awards. To find out more, visit www.laureus.com
