Sarah Storey on competing in her record-breaking ninth Paralympics

"So, he beeps his horn and shoots past us unnecessarily fast. He was too close - if something had been coming the other way, he would have caused a collision." Did he have any idea who he was harassing? Possibly. "I was in my World Championships kit…"

A collision with Storey and the others in her group – all fellow members of British Cycling – doesn’t bear thinking about. Weeks later, 46-year-old Storey is en route to her ninth summer Paralympics. No British athlete has ever competed in nine consecutive Games; her total of 28 Paralympic medals, including 17 golds, already makes her the most decorated British Paralympian of all time.

And so Storey will approach the Paris circuit in the same manner she approached the road race at the Tokyo Games in 2021, when she won her 17th gold in spectacular fashion. Pelting rain meant the 66km circuit was near-impossible to read.

But, having memorised it, Storey knew how to ride it, even with her eyes closed. On the final lap, everyone else was nervously slowing down on a hill that had a corner with an overhanging tree. She took the descent at 80kmph and simply ducked the branches. Class.

"I’ll be taking what I’ve been doing in the last 33 years to the start line," she says. Does she visualise winning? "Absolutely not. One of the things that used to make us teenagers giggle was being told to lie down, listen to whale music and visualise ourselves winning. It’s unhelpful.

"What you have to do is visualise the process of winning, or the process of completing a race that you might win. Everybody is going for the same thing. All you can control is your process, like pieces in a jigsaw, one after the other."

We’re talking in Manchester’s National Cycling Centre, overlooking the giant velodrome. But the arena isn’t where Storey enjoys world dominance. Her stadium is the roads outside, in the rain and gravel, a place where it really hurts if you fall off.

She can currently be seen falling off her bike in Channel 4’s trailer for the Paralympics, which goes to some lengths to show that Paralympians are not "superhuman", but real people as affected as anyone by a bike spinning out of control. "We are no more superhuman than anyone," she says. "Friction on a rider is the same in the Paralympics as it is in the Tour de France."

Storey, who was born without a functioning left hand after her arm became entangled in the umbilical cord, says that the perception of disability has changed during her career. "The focus up until now has been on the prosthetic, or the part of the body that’s missing," she says. "It’s another iteration of being 'brave and courageous'.

"But you are now recognised by a much broader number of people as being a great athlete. I would like to see that replicated for other people. So you’re not patronising people with disabilities, you are placing something there to enable them to live their best life."

Check out our Paralympics 2024 TV guide, including where to watch the action, exclusive interviews, and a day-by-day TV planner.

So dominant is Storey in her discipline that it is sobering to remember that her Paralympic journey began in the pool. She competed in the 1992 Barcelona Games, aged 14, and came home with two golds, three silvers and a bronze. She gained a further three golds, five silvers and two bronzes at the next three Paralympics in Atlanta, Sydney and Athens.

One might have thought that after Athens she would have then retired, job done, but no. An ear infection kept her out of the pool for months, so Storey tried out on a bike, just to keep fit. By the time the infection had subsided, she had broken a world record on the bike, and Beijing was on the horizon. UK Sport couldn’t fund her in both disciplines, so a choice lay before her.

"London had just landed the Games. My coach said, 'The gains you can make now in the pool are relatively small, but you are going places on that bike. If you were my daughter, I would tell you to try something new.'

"We were three years out from Beijing, and seven years out from London. So there was time. They were some of the wisest words I had ever heard."

Her mental capacity in the pool made a huge impact on her proficiency as a cyclist. She had spent hours revising GCSEs in her head while swimming lengths, envisaging lists of French verbs or maths equations and simply replaying them in her mind. Storey had developed almost perfect visual recall.

So, with a road race, she could prepare by visually memorising the exact route, with all its quirks and challenges. "It’s like having an instant map in my head. I can see where the extra power is needed, where the technical sections are, where there will be a chance for a breather and where I need to concentrate on the finishing line."

Her years as a swimmer were not easy. At school in Cheshire, the golden girl was not someone to be admired, but someone to be picked on, and Storey developed an eating disorder.

"People would just stop talking when I walked into a classroom," she says. "After Barcelona, my life was not normal for a child doing GCSEs; 20 per cent of my lessons I did at home. I would arrive at school with wet hair from morning training, then leave immediately after the school day, for evening training. All of that meant I was quite difficult to identify with, so people started making things up."

She remembers feeling "quite isolated". "It taught me a lesson, really early, that it’s OK if not everybody likes you. I just had to block out those people and protect the people who did like me. I think it’s helped me throughout my career. To recognise when people are toxic, sidestep them and carry on with my path, without there needing to be a big showdown."

When Storey returns to school now with her medals in tow, she gets a very different reception.

"I take them to schools, but it’s the reaction of the grown-ups. Some people just start crying. The younger children don’t really understand what they are holding. They want to throw them around. But the adults… Sometimes you’ll be speaking at a conference or a workshop where you’ve got a small group of people and then I’ll simply put them in the middle of the room while we are chatting and let people have a look. They feel their weight and they are just overwhelmed. They are in tears."

Storey’s 17th medal ceremony, in an almost empty Tokyo stadium due to the pandemic, was particularly poignant. "I remember thinking, 'I have to take this in,' because it was so unique, and bizarre. The medal ceremony always feels like it comes so soon after the race, which is great because it’s all you want, if you’ve won it. But it all happens so fast, you are still inwardly celebrating, and feeling relieved because you have built up towards that moment for so long."

After the absence of crowds or family in Tokyo, Paris will be very different. She is particularly excited because her children, Louisa, 11, and six-year-old Charlie, will be there with her husband Barney, who is also a multiple Paralympic medallist, having been a sighted pilot for blind or partially sighted cyclists in tandem track events.

"It’s next level, being able to share in their excitement and see it through their eyes. It’s incredibly helpful to me as a mother. You think about the hours you sat up at night feeding them, and all the things that you did to nurture them the best way you can. And then they get to see you in the glare of performance, that sort of raw situation where nothing else matters."

Medal after medal, Storey is testament to the simple adage that preparation is all. "If you want to be successful, you have to focus 100 per cent on the task in hand and have a strategy all the way through. The strategy helps the nerves because you know what you’re going to do."

As we talk, the Paralympic emblem is emblazoned on the Arc de Triomphe, but Storey is confident Paris will pick up London’s baton in more than just branding. "Paris has seen what happened with London, how the Olympics and Paralympics co-existed. They want to make sure the Paralympics has a legacy."

Ideally, it will prove to be even better. "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."

Now is the time, she urges. "We have to change things piece by piece. Paris has the chance now to really move the dial."

The Paris 2024 Paralympic Games will air on Channel 4, More4 and Streaming from Wednesday 28th August 2024.

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