Visiting Professor Dame Sarah Storey caps Paralympic success with world cycling title
Visiting Professor Dame Sarah Storey has added to her amazing winning collection – and her two Paris Paralympic golds from the summer – as she won at the UCI Road World Championships in Zurich.
Storey won gold in the women’s C4-C5 individual time trial at the 2024 Para-cycling Road World Championships in Switzerland, completing the 29.9km course one minute and 36 seconds ahead of her nearest rival.
The most decorated British Paralympian in history, Storey shot to sporting stardom age 14, winning six swimming medals before eventually switching to Para cycling before the Beijing games in 2008.
She went on to win 14 Olympic gold cycling medals, including two at the Paralympic Games in Paris this summer.
Now age 46, her victory in Switzerland brings her total number of cycling world titles to 38.
In preparation for the Paralympics and Road World Championships, Storey worked closely with Manchester Metropolitan University Institute of Sport, and that relationship will continue after a summer of success as she embarks on a research project into exercise, sport, the perimenopause and the menopause with the Centre of Excellence for Women in Sport, which launched earlier this year 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.
Storey said: “It’s incredible to have so many more people talking about the fact we need to understand female physiology far better.
“We 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.
“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.”
Storey was awarded an honorary MSc and honorary Doctor of Science by Manchester Met in 2003 and 2009 and has had a long-standing partnership with the University.
In January this year she joined the University’s Institute of Sport as a Visiting Professor in Sport to help in its mission to push boundaries of sport and health to improve lives and shape society.
Ahead of this year’s Paralympic Games, Storey spoke to the University’s podcast MetCast about her medal memories, her thoughts on the future of inclusive sports, and the preparations for Paris. Listen to the episode here.
