Sarah Storey Pursuing More Paralympic Glory in Beijing
Story posted March 12
By Larry Hickmott
Like Jody Cundy featured on the website this week, Sarah Storey (pictured above training at Newport recently) has successfully made the move over to cycling from swimming and in September, will be looking to be at her fifth Paralympic Games, a feat that few athletes have achieved. Sarah, formerly known as Sarah Bailey but now married to sprinter pilot Barney Storey, has had an interesting career so far as a cyclist breaking world records seemingly at will as well as her collarbone twice as she pursued World title after World title.
Aside from the time in hospital, Sarah admits her time on the bike has been fantastic, achieving the same accolades as before but in a completely different sport where the training has been so similar but so different and also being able to do it alongside her hubby (Barney). Looking ahead to the Beijing Games, Sarah says “it will be fantastic to be back in an Paralympic environment and alongside the swimmers but not be doing that event. I was 14 at my first games and so have grown up knowing no different to doing the swimming. It will be great to have them alongside us in Team GB but be completely separate at the same time”.
“I would never have believed when I went to my first Games in 1992 that this time I would be looking forward to my fifth games and as a cyclist. I’m very excited about that and it will be unique – more unique than any of the other Games.”
“I definitely feel like a cyclist now and I have been told I look more like a cyclist. At our wedding, one of my uncles said ‘I am so glad you gave up that swimming, you look so more lady like around your shoulders now.’ I even dream about bike racing now where as even as recently as a year ago, I’d dream about swimming races which I haven’t done for a long time.”
Having changed sports, I asked Sarah how the run up to the Games this time round will be for her? “We’re just under sixth months away from the opening ceremony and for me this approach will be very similar to when I was approaching Atlanta when I was the World Record holder and Defending champion (and world champion).”
“Although I am not a defending Paralympic champion in any of my cycling events, I am double World champion and World record holder and undefeated in the Pursuit. So there are a lot of expectations sitting on my shoulders but the Paralympics this time is almost worth less than the World championships because of the way they are ‘factoring’ the event.”
“I will be an LC1 competing against LC2s and CP4s and against a World Record they are factoring according to a percentage (for each of the competing categories in the one event) and they (the IPC) are making that decision – one I have no control over. So the event has almost lost a little of its worth however strange that may seem.”
“So, it is like no other that has come before it but still similar when you add in the expectations on my shoulders. I will have to approach it like no other pursuit before because how do you factor a pursuit? If I catch the person on the track, in a normal LC1 race, I would be the winner, but in the Paralympic event in Beijing, that may not be the case. And there is no clear guidance as to whether we’ll be racing two up or on our own. So there will be in Beijing unknowns outside of my own control.”
“For me, the challenge is about becoming a better athlete, increasing my endurance, my speed, bettering my starts and reducing my time from the 3.48 I can do now down to around a 3.40.”
It is clear that Sarah is disappointed that her Paralympic Gold medal challenge will not be the same as it has been in the World Championships where she is quite simply, the best in her class. Instead, not only will she have to be the best in her class, but also hope that the handicapping (factoring) that the officials use to try and give everyone in the LC1, LC2 and CP4 categories a chance at the medals will be fair to all.
At the World Disability Championships, the LC1 category is a big enough class to be run off in its own right. LC2 and CP4 meanwhile are very small classes in comparison and so they are already combined at the Worlds. “Due to the politics and so on, they have not increased the size of the Paralympics sufficiently to allow my class to be run off as it is now on its own” Sarah explained and then adding “and so they have penalised us if you like, by putting us with these classes that have a lower standard.”
“It is a difficult pill to swallow when you increase the standard of your own class and are then put in these other classes. Its frustrating but you can only be the best you can be and my focus is not on what other people do in the decision making but on my 3K time being better than it is right now. And if that is good enough to win the Gold medal, then great. If some body else from another category decreases their World Record by a greater amount than I can possibly manage, then that is out of my control.”
“If I do a 3.38 and go ten seconds inside the world record and the LC2 girl goes 4 minutes which is 12 seconds inside her world record, then she beats me. But 3.38 would place me relatively high at the able bodied Olympic games. The same applies for the 500. The bottom line is that I can’t focus on these things because they could drive you crazy. Ultimately, I am an athlete with a job to do in terms of setting a time and that is a good thing.”
In Beijing, Sarah will be targeting three events including the road time trial. It would have been more but the road race has been dropped. A measure of her ability, not just against Paralympic opposition but also able bodied riders, Sarah has spent a lot of the winter lining up with able bodied cyclists on the track doing the women’s team pursuit.
“I came back from my honeymoon and was thrown in to doing the morning Team Pursuit sessions and that was great to keep the legs going round on a fixed wheel. Doing the Team Pursuit was incredibly good for me and I hope to do more in the future.”
Between now and Beijing, Sarah and the team have various camps in Newport as well as training blocks in well known destinations such as Majorca to help them get in some hours on the bike in better weather. Sarah is also going to travel to China to look at the road course for her event at the Paralympic Games before a major stepping stone, the Paralympic World Cup at Manchester.
During the year Sarah also intends doing some time trials, the Cardiff GP, Women’s Criterium Nationals, National Masters championships and the Disability road race champs in July before cutting back on the racing and concentrating on training for the Games.
Great Expectations
Asked about her expectations for Beijing after so much success in the pool and also in the World Championship Cycling arena, Sarah replies “it is about being realistic – you can only be the best you can be. So my expectations are to ride a 3k pursuit faster than I have ever ridden one before and the same for the 500 and Time Trial. If I am in the best shape I can be in, I cannot ask for any more.”
“I have every intention to also be around for London and 2012 and do everything in my power to be faster every year. If us competitors focus on the factoring the organisation is using for our events, it will destroy them so you have to be realistic.”
Sarah does a gear change during training.
Laureus Awards
One of the big lifetime accolades for Sarah has been in being nominated along with Darren Kenny for the Laureus Awards (http://www.laureus.com/awards/2008). This ceremony brings together sporting celebrities past and present to honour the great achievements of the sports stars of today and is also a platform to showcase the work of the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation.
Sarah takes up the story of how it all came about. “I received an email in the middle of January that said I had been nominated and we had been invited to the event in St Petersburg in February. I had to re-read the email about four times and said to Barney I can’t believe this.”
“It is an event I have always looked at and taken note of and a friend of mine Tanni Grey Thompson has won, and it is something you look at and wonder how good is that. You look at the guest list and the Hollywood stars that turn up alongside all the international sports stars – a whos who of international sport. We got invited there along with four other nominees, Darren Kenny, Daniel Dias, Michael Teuber and Esther Vergeer who won the award.”
“It was amazing to walk up the red carpet and have a bank of hundred or so photographers shouting look here, look here -- it was like no other event I have experienced. St Petersburg is a beautiful city so you could not have asked for a better setting.”
“It was really surreal to go on a Museum Tour the morning of the awards and see small groups going around the Palace and associated buildings. In the groups were about 12 people and in our group besides Barney, Esther Vergeer and her parents was England football manager Fabio Capello and we kept pinching ourselves. It was quite surreal.”
“I met Mark Spitz and Dawn Fraser who are from my previous sport of swimming and alongside us were people like Boris Becker and Frankie Fredericks. I was sitting next to Shayne Warne during the awards. To be involved was a great honour and to be recognised is an opportunity never to be turned down. Alongside the MBE, it ranks amongst the highest and most unexpected awards I have had”.
Our thanks to Sarah for her time in talking to us and we wish her all the best in her quest to add to her already impressive list of Paralympic medals.
RELATED LINKS
February Paralympic Training Camp
Jody Cundy Interview March 2008
