Dame Sarah Storey has backed the Paris Paralympics to surpass the legacy of London 2012 as she prepares to compete at a record-breaking ninth Games.
Storey is Britain’s most successful Paralympian, having won 17 gold medals across careers in first swimming and then cycling, stretching all the way back to her debut Games in Barcelona in 1992.
They included winning two gold medals on the road in London, which was at the time hailed as “the greatest Paralympic Games ever” by IPC president Sir Philip Craven. The two editions since, however, have been disappointments, with poor ticket sales and budget shortfalls forcing cutbacks to Rio 2016, before the Tokyo Games took placed behind closed doors during the Covid pandemic.
Champion wheelchair racer Hannah Cockroft said this year that it was “embarrassing” that an event staged 12 years ago remained the benchmark for the movement, but Storey believes that could change in Paris over the next month.
“Paris has seen what happened with London, how the Olympics and Paralympics co-existed,” the 46-year-old told the Radio Times. “They want to make sure the Paralympics has a legacy.
“We started a conversation in London, but it didn’t impact daily life for people with disabilities. Athletes with disabilities are provided with training opportunities and the chance to be elite. But in day-to-day life, we add hurdles to people with disabilities, because we forget to think about them. We failed to translate the gains.
“The London Paralympics might have been inspiring, but it didn’t change the fact that disabled people are still left on trains because there are no ramps, or that charging cables for electric cars mean trip hazards, or that people leave Lime bikes lying on the pavement, or that roads lack curbs at the right height for a visually impaired person. All of that matters.”
Storey, who will seek to defend her C5 time trial and C4-5 road race titles in Paris, is due to be among more than 200 British athletes competing across 19 sports.
The Games begin with next Wednesday’s opening ceremony, which — as with the Olympics — will make history as the first staged outside the main stadium, with athletes to parade along the Champs-Elysees to the Place de la Concorde.
The Paralympics will also use many of the same venues, with the Stade de France to host athletics, while the Chateau de Versailles, Grand Palais and Roland-Garros will all feature once more.
