Record-breaking Paralympian Dame Sarah Storey reveals medal hopes and insights into extraordinary career
History-making Paralympian Dame Sarah Storey recently found time in her busy Paris 2024 training schedule to chat to Manchester Met for our August MetCast podcast.
Winning 17 gold, eight silver and three bronze medals, Sarah’s broken records, defied expectations and become a role model for millions. As well as being the most decorated Paralympian ever, as a Visiting Professor of Sport and an honorary graduate, Sarah is a long-time friend and colleague of Manchester Met.
Shooting to stardom in Barcelona in 1992 at the tender age of 14, Sarah won six swimming medals. She went on to compete at four more games as a Para swimmer before switching to Para cycling ahead of the Beijing 2008 games.
She’s been unstoppable since then, earning a total of 12 cycling gold medals, and now – with the support of Manchester Met’s high-tech facilities in the Institute of Sport – is about to make history in her ninth Games at the age of 46.
Sarah was born without a functioning left hand and as the first disabled cyclist to compete for England against non-disabled athletes, is championing the concept of the Olympics and Paralympics as one long and diverse festival.
We asked her about this, as well as her favourite medal memories, the issues facing women in sport, and her long-standing teaching, research, and training links with the university. Click here to listen to the interview in full.
First of all, we asked Sarah how prep’s going for her upcoming Paris time trial and road race.
Sarah: Preparations for Paris are going really well. I’ve just come back from a training camp in Lanzarote, and I’ve got another camp in the final three weeks before the competition - just a place where I go to train super hard in the heat and there’s no there’s no respite in the wind there either. So it really makes you strong. The next few weeks before I go back, there are about two and a half weeks of various different races. And then, it’ll be into Paris.
Crucial to the success of Sarah’s Paralympic career has been her family, with husband and fellow athlete Barney taking on a pivotal role as her business partner and chief supporter, along with their young children Charlie and Louisa. It was the once-in-a-lifetime chance for them to watch her compete that spurred Sarah on to pursue her Paris hopes – especially after pandemic rules prevented them flying out to Tokyo for the postponed 2021 Games.
Sarah: Charlie and Louisa were integral to the decision to go to Tokyo at all. It became clear at the beginning of July 2021, that there was absolutely no way we could get them out to Japan…We literally tried everything. I sat them down with Barney and we said: “It’s a long trip, and you won’t have an understanding of how long until it’s happening. What do you want me to do?” And Louisa and Charlie just said: “You have to race, Mum, you could become the most successful Paralympian ever.” And it was really, really important that they were integrated. But then that was the caveat. (They also said): “You need to go to Paris so we can watch you.”
In her bid for Paris victory, Sarah’s working closely with Manchester Met. Our state-of-the-art environmental chamber is warming her up for the expected midsummer conditions. Based at the Institute of Sport, it’s a facility capable of simulating the stickiest of French capital climates. After training in the chamber, Sarah’s fully prepared for top temperatures and humidity.
Sarah: During a lot of the build up to the games, being able to get out for longer blocks overseas in the heat itself is difficult. But you can also replicate that incredibly well using the facilities of Manchester Metropolitan University in their chambers. So started out 2010 using the chamber down in Crewe, and then more recently when the Institute of Sport opened using the chamber up at the University on Oxford Road. And it’s incredible to use a very potent environment like that. The beauty of the environment chamber is you can have the absolute specific conditions that you need and you can have the temperature and the humidity at the right level. Having access to that is giving another dimension to training. Having that layer of support and that understanding of you as an individual is key.
It’s that individual approach to understanding physiology that Sarah’s invested in – as are we. Earlier this year we announced the launch of our Centre of Excellence for Women in Sport, in partnership with the UK Sports Institute. Focusing on female health and performance, the Centre researches and shares the latest knowledge in women’s sport and exercise health. For Sarah, it’s a much-needed – and previously untapped - area of research.
Sarah: It’s incredible to have so many more people talking about the fact we need to understand female physiology far better. We also need to understand the journey of female physiology, how it changes from teenage years as the menstrual cycle starts, through your adult years, the bulk of your athletic career being in your late teens and 20s for most athletes, and 30s now and then. What happens as you get older and your reproductive years lessen is not an exact science either.
Sarah’s long-standing partnership with Manchester Met has meant she’s been at the forefront of driving that innovation in research. From being swim trained at our former Crewe campus to working with our sports scientists in preparation for multiple Para and World Championship competitions, she was even awarded an Honorary MSc and Doctor of Science, then more recently appointed as Visiting Professor of Sport.
Sarah: Since I was honoured with an MSC back in 2003, the University has been an almost constant presence. Just beyond Beijing, when I moved into cycling, I started working down at the Crewe campus, and so having that opportunity to be an ambassador for the University, but also to benefit from the incredible facilities that they’ve always had, has been a huge privilege. And then more recently, I was honoured with the role of Visiting Professor at the Institute of Sport. I think it’s hugely exciting to have the knowledge, the brains, the research capacity and the facilities behind the opportunities that women and females in sport need now.
But it’s not just the Institute of Sport that’s benefitted from Sarah’s experience. It might sound like an unlikely partnership, but our Manchester Fashion Institute proved to be the perfect pairing for Sarah’s elite racing team, Storey Racing. Working together, they produced a range of stylish and practical leisurewear that complemented the team’s technical race clothing.
Sarah: A few years ago our cycling team was sponsored by the Manchester Fashion Institute. We worked with the students over a couple of years in that era to talk about the importance of clothing, of technical fabrics and of how clothing and sportswear and competition wear can affect performance positively or negatively. It was a really insightful couple of years. And then this year, I also met a young lady who’d decided to start her own business and provide an off the peg solution for people who are wheelchair users. Because so often jackets aren’t the right length or pockets are in the wrong place or blouses don’t sit nicely. So she was looking into that and having not had any contact with the Fashion Institute for a few years, it was really cool to see how what we’d done sort of around the time of 2016, 2017, 2018, had broadened people’s horizons into thinking about that sort of fashion challenge that can often face people.
Redressing the balance between those with and without disabilities is something Sarah’s passionate about. While the Paralympics was historically seen as an ‘add on’ to the so-called main Olympic event, times are changing – and Sarah welcomes this shift wholeheartedly.
Sarah: Within sport we always knew it was two games, but outside of the sporting sphere, not many people knew the Paralympics existed. And Lord Coe, as he led the Olympic and Paralympic Games of London 2012, said, we’re going to call it the Olympic and Paralympic Games. We’re not going to have one and then the other. It’s a full festival, six weeks of sport. And now Paris, they’re fully invested and people will be able to watch that in action, not just on the screens. And it’s so important because whilst a sporting event can’t solve the societal issues that people with disabilities face, what it can do is provide a metaphor for how we deal with those issues. And so when you provide the support and opportunity and enable disabled people who are sporty to be athletic and reach their potential, you get an event like the Paralympic Games where the most elite athletes with disabilities converge every four years to battle it out for those medals. If you provide support and opportunity in society to enable people who aren’t sporty to be successful, to take the opportunities and to live the fullest life they possibly can, they will be able to do so.
That idea extends, not just to elite athletics, but to the simple task of getting about. In her role as Active Travel Commissioner for Greater Manchester, Sarah’s tasked with ensuring the benefits of walking, wheeling and cycling are unlocked for all residents and communities.
Sarah: People can’t be spontaneous with their travel if they have disabilities because they need to book assistance and they need a ramp because there are too many steps and doorways aren’t wide enough, and there isn’t facilities for them to go to the toilet. There are certain things that you think in a modern, civilized society ought to be possible regardless of your access needs. And for me, it’s a privilege to work as the Active Travel Commissioner in Greater Manchester, because I can constantly talk about these things. And if there’s a tram line closed and we’ve got a walking route diversion, just double checking that we’re making everybody aware that it is a step free route, that we’ve thought about it. And sometimes we have to go a little bit above and beyond, because you have to remember that disabled people are constantly inconvenienced, and that is every single hour of the day. It’s a military operation for most people to take a public transport journey, and it shouldn’t be. When you provide the support and opportunity people thrive, then that will transfer to some real societal change for people with disabilities.
Improving society for future generations is a theme that’s continuing in Sarah’s role as Manchester Met’s Visiting Professor of Sport. It’s a challenge she’s relishing, with a particular highlight being the chance to personally share the highs and lows of her formative years as an emerging athlete.
Sarah: There are times when I’m able to utilize some of my lived experience and I think it’s always really exciting to meet a young, ambitious student. They have the world at their feet. University isn’t an easy phase of life, but it’s about building, putting those building blocks down, creating the foundations of your own career. And you can empower them to understand they have a lot more control than they perhaps feel as though they may do. It’s hugely exciting and something that I really enjoy talking to them about. And when you speak to students who’ve got that spark and they whether they know exactly what they’re doing and where they’re going or whether they don’t, it’s equally as rewarding to come away from a conversation like that.
We couldn’t let Sarah go without asking for her personal career highlight. But when you’re the most successful and decorated Paralympian that’s ever lived, how do you choose?
Sarah: 17 gold medals are all highlights of their own. I think having Louisa there when I was competing in Rio was an incredible highlight. Clearly, the home games were an incredible highlight and being selected for the first time was too, but each games has its unique kind of things that make them special or challenging. Atlanta was hugely challenging. The food was terrible, and we were very fortunate that the swimming pool was part of the village, because so many people were delayed by the bus problems there. And, you know, Athens had issues that were rectified by games time. But clearly, every games have its ups and downs, but they’re all unique and amazing in different ways. But having a home games always stands out. And when your kids are there on the finish line it’s just an incredible feeling.
To watch Sarah in the Paris 2024 Paralympics tune in from 29th August for the track events and from 4th September for the road races. And to listen to the interview in full go to our August MetCast.
