Dame Sarah Storey stormed to a 17th road para-cycling title with a dominant victory in the women’s C5 individual time trial at the UCI Cycling World Championships in Dumfries.
Storey, who now has 42 world titles in total, was the second rider to start and laid down a time of 39 minutes 48.89 seconds over the lumpy 28.2km course, a benchmark nobody else could touch as Australia’s Alana Forster was 74 seconds back in second place.
“Oh my goodness,” Storey said as soon as she got off the bike. “Yesterday I was panicking and I was panicking all day today. This is the event I live for. I couldn’t have done any more. Wow. That was quick.”
Storey is competing a year on from being involved in a horror crash at a race in Quebec, when a list of injuries including a punctured lung, broken rib and concussion symptoms left her questioning whether she could get back to the top.
Storey, 45, will now target an 18th road title in Saturday’s road race.
Her medal was a fifth of the day for Great Britain in the para-cycling time trials, and the second gold after Fran Brown won the women’s C2 race.
Sophie Unwin and Jenny Holl followed their run of success on the track with silver in the women’s B race, Fin Graham took silver in the men’s C3, and Katie Toft won bronze in the women’s C1.
