The Game Changers
In this award-winning podcast Sue Anstiss talks to trailblazers in women sport. These are the individuals who are knocking down barriers and challenging the status quo for women and girls everywhere. Along with openly sharing their historic careers, what drives them and how they’ve dealt with tough challenges, each episode explores key issues for equality in sport and beyond.
We’re incredibly grateful to Sport England who support The Game Changers through a National Lottery award.
You can find out about all the guests at https://www.fearlesswomen.co.uk/thegamechangers Fearless Women in Sport
The Game Changers
Sarah Storey: How to focus on the things you can control
As we look forward to the Paralympics at Paris 2024, we're sharing this previous episode with Paralympian Dame Sarah Storey, which was first released on September 15, 2020.
Dame Sarah Storey is the most successful British female Paralympian of all time with 38 World titles, 14 Paralympic Golds and 76 world records.
Sarah was just 14 when she made her Paralympic debut at Barcelona 92, winning five medals including two Golds. She went on to win more medals in the pool at Atlanta, Sydney and Athens before moving to cycling and winning more medals on the track and the road at Beijing, London and Rio. Sarah’s also six times British national track champion.
Sarah, and her husband Barney, now run Storey Racing, and Sarah’s also the Active Travel Commissioner for the Sheffield City Region.
Thank you to Sport England who support The Game Changers Podcast with a National Lottery award.
Find out more about The Game Changers podcast here: https://www.fearlesswomen.co.uk/thegamechangers
Hosted by Sue Anstiss
Produced by Sam Walker, What Goes On Media
A Fearless Women production
Hello and welcome to he Game Changers, the podcast where you'll hear from extraordinary, trailblazing women in sport. I'm Sue Anstis, a founding trustee of the Women's Sport Trust charity and the founder of Fearless Women, a company with a powerful ambition to drive positive change for women's sport. I'm thrilled to say that this series of the Game Changers is supported by Sport England, who've done so much to tackle the inequalities women face across all areas of sport, from the wonderful this Girl Can campaign and initiatives that help shape school sport for girls, to schemes that encourage more female volunteers in the workforce, support female coaches and officials and ensure more women from all backgrounds take leadership positions on the boards of sports organisations. My guest today is Dame Sarah Storey, the most successful British female Paralympian of all time, with 38 world titles, 14 Paralympic golds and 76 world records.
Sue Anstiss:Sarah was just 14 when she made her Paralympic debut at Barcelona 92, winning five gold medals, including two golds. She went on to win more medals in the pool at Atlanta, sydney and Athens before moving to cycling, and winning more medals in the pool at Atlanta, sydney and Athens, before moving to cycling, and winning more medals on the track and the road at Beijing, london and Rio. Sarah's also six times British National Track Champion. Sarah and her husband Barney now run Story Racing and Sarah's also the Active Travel Commissioner for the Sheffield City region. I asked Sarah to share her memories of that first Paralympics in Barcelona.
Sarah Storey:I was racing in Barcelona in 92, a German girl who'd never been beaten, claudia Hengst, and she was kind of the nemesis of everybody in the S10 category and she was unbeatable as far as everyone was concerned. And it was the first time I'd come across this concept that you know, somebody was untouchable in sports and I just, you know, didn't buy that as a kid. You don't, do you kind of like think, well, I'm not going to believe that, make my own decisions. So she beat me in the 400 meter freestyle but I did a huge personal best time and one of the things that I'd always focused on as a kid because I was never quite good enough for the national age group champs in the able-bodied swimming was that I beat my personal best. And if I beat my best then that was all we could do. And in going a huge PB in the 400, I got a silver medal. So I was absolutely over the moon and it set me up for the week.
Sarah Storey:So when it came to the 100 meters backstroke, which was my first real opportunity to kind of beat her, I was just so excited but also really concerned that maybe everyone was right because she had won everything up until that point and the first sort of 15 meters of the race, all I could see was this enormous splash and I just thought, oh, that's a leg kick and actually it was her arms. And when we got to the turn and I saw the scoreboard and I was a second and a half ahead of her, I was just like wow and I like smashed myself all the way up the second 50 and broke the world record by a good few seconds and beat her by about nearly three seconds I think. And it was just like wow, it's possible, she can be beaten. So, yeah, I really remember that excitement of proving that Claudia Hengst who's a fantastic girl a fair few years older than me I suppose she must have been, but yeah, it was. So it was really cool.
Sarah Storey:And then I went on a few days later to beat her again in the 200 meter individual medley and so I had to come behind her again in the 100 freestyle when I got my bronze medal and be part of a relay team. I think, um, the Germans or the Americans won the relays when we got two silvers. So, yeah, she, she'd been a big rival all that week and she continued to be for a good few years after and what was it like being the youngest person on that team.
Sarah Storey:I wasn't actually the youngest. So, bizarrely, there was two other girls who were 14 as well Vicky Sims, now called Vicky Foley, and Rachel Peachy, now called Rachel Foote, and so they were both a few weeks younger. Like I was October, vicky was the 30th of December and Rachel was somewhere in the middle. And there was a girl called Claire Bishop, who's now Claire Cunningham, works for Paralympics GB. She'd just turned 15, and there was a lad called Ian Matthew, who was also 15. So there was like five of us who were year nine or ten at school, who were all in that team together, and then a few others who were probably A-level style. So there was quite a big contingent of youngsters there and then a really big contingent of swimmers in their early 20s, and so it was quite a really nice balance, I think.
Sue Anstiss:And what are your overriding memories of that first experience?
Sarah Storey:I remember the roar of the stadium when we walked in for the opening ceremony, because it wasn't sort of even coined the idea that you needed to rest at that point ready for competition, and we stood out in the heat for hours on end and just like had an absolute ball. But I think that was the way it needed to be, because as a kid I wouldn't have known that it was time to rest I would have been restless in the village anyway, but we just had this incredible roar as we walked into that stadium. And no, no other stadium has come close, really Maybe the closing ceremony at London 2012. But yeah, it was just insanely good and the size of the crowds was. They were all bigger than anyone had expected.
Sarah Storey:The Paralympics was really taken to the heart of the people in Barcelona. They loved the competition of the Olympics and they heard the Paralympics were coming and they just wanted to be a part of that as well. So they reopened the closed parts of the stadium in the swimming pool. So the temporary stands got reopened and they had full houses as they had had for the Olympics. So it was amazing.
Sue Anstiss:Excellent, and being out in the heat obviously didn't affect you, because you went on to win, I think, three golds, two silvers and a bronze. Is that correct?
Sarah Storey:Two golds, three silvers and a bronze in Barcelona. And Correct, two gold, three silver and a bronze in Barcelona. And yeah, I think that was the thing it's kind of like there's so much psychosomatic element to this as well. And so if you believe that you're going to need that rest, then you need that rest and you have that choice. And I think that's the key for any athlete You'll hear about it next year in Tokyo as well Having that choice to go to the opening ceremony is really the key part, and obviously we know when we've had members of the cycling team like Chris Hoy carried the flag, so they made it possible by putting in place the right things to make sure it wasn't an issue for performance. But largely now we don't go to the opening ceremony because, well, certainly for Tokyo next year, we're going to be too far away from Tokyo itself to be even in the right city.
Sue Anstiss:And when did that actually sink in, I guess, extraordinary number of medals that you won at your very first Games?
Sarah Storey:I don't really know, because I think it probably wasn't until I was maybe at university and going through the problems I had with chronic fatigue syndrome that I realised just what had happened to me as a kid and just what a career I'd set up for myself.
Sarah Storey:And I suppose it's only really as I've got a little bit older that I've realised the enormity of doing what I did as a 14-year-old. And it was amazing for me to be in Beijing when Ellie Simmons, because I was the youngest gold medallist until Ellie Simmons in Beijing, so to watch her do what she did and know what she had ahead of her was just so exciting. But also gave me that opportunity to really appreciate that I was just a few weeks older than Ellie when I won mine and then yeah, so I guess it was quite a long time after, although at the time I was like, yeah, you know, it's really exciting. And I think also in the run-up to the games in Atlanta when I was doing my A-levels. At the same time I probably realised the enormity of the job in hand, of trying to have that like two careers, I suppose.
Sue Anstiss:And did you just go back to school? So you're in that year. That's 10, 11, yeah.
Sarah Storey:So I had, I think we got back from Barcelona on something like the Wednesday or Thursday of a week, say. I think we got back from Barcelona on something like the Wednesday or Thursday of a week, say, and I had a few days at home and went down to London to go on to Blue Peter with Tanny Great-Thompson, simon Jackson, chris Holmes, dave Moore and a couple of the table tennis players, one or two of the other track and field athletes, and there was a group of us in the studio. So high school, I think we did that on the Friday, so high. So high school said look, go do these things, then come back on Monday, and that's like draw a line under it and come back. So I'd had three weeks of the term like off. So I got back on the Monday, I think maybe we got home Wednesday. Thursday I went into school to show the medals.
Sarah Storey:Friday. I went to Blue Peter Monday I started back in year 10 and so it was really quite strange and going back to school was really good to start with and then not great after that because I think, because I did just draw a line under it, I was like right medals in the box back to school GCSEs, as you know, it's kind of like you know so important drilled into you and I didn't really talk about Barcelona again and because I'd been told not to to distract myself or anyone else. So then that led to a small faction of girls thinking that I thought I was too good for them and didn't want to talk about it because I was uppity, whereas it was really quite the opposite. So I had a fairly lonely existence, I suppose for the final two years at high school.
Sue Anstiss:And who told you not to talk about it? Was that the school that had said don't talk about it?
Sarah Storey:Yeah, I mean, if you can imagine a school, they didn't really know how to kind of cope with this. All the press had turned up at school during the games. My swimming club had had the press down every night when the days had won medals. They'd had another pupil at school who I think she was in sixth form or just finished. She'd made the team for the Olympics and so they had, you know, two of us, but one of us kind of went into catastrophic measures of medals, and so it's kind of, how do we handle this to make it fair to Sarah, fair to the rest of the pupils? So the idea was come in, don't do lessons and show everyone your medals and have that kind of social time. But then, you know, draw a line under it and concentrate on work.
Sarah Storey:And I got back into training straight away. So I was arriving at school with wet hair and kind of like move on to the next event, which at that point was two years later, was going to be the world championships. So I was just like, yes, let's go on, I want to do another one, I want to race again, like, and so for me it wasn't a hard thing to kind of do that because I was doing little jaunts out. I had like the Sunday Times school girl of the year that I won and other little events, that sort of award ceremonies in the run-up to Christmas, and but I just kept them to myself.
Sarah Storey:I didn't really kind of want to distract anyone in lessons. So in some ways, if I'd been the big head and kind of look at me, guess where I I'm going tomorrow, I probably would have been in the same position anyway. So I guess it was just one of those situations where I was doing something unusual. It was exciting and you know, most bullying at school is down to some form of misunderstanding or jealousy. And it wasn't great at the time and I did have. I really struggled with it, but I kept focusing on what my mum and dad were saying of make sure that you just remember your career in sport or whatever you want to do is forever and it's only however many months left until GCSEs start.
Sue Anstiss:Moving on and what made you so competitive? So, even at such a young age, what do you think drove you? Is that it's something you've seen within your family?
Sarah Storey:I'm not 100% sure. I remember watching the Olympics in 84. That was the first one I remember and just loved the competition and just wanted to get involved with any sport going. My primary school was an incredibly sporty school. It had its own swimming club.
Sarah Storey:So I was racing in the school swimming galas from probably being in year four but I was fastest swimmer in the school year four, five and six so I was kind of ahead of all my peers even though I was a paddle short, as it were, and we played netball, we played in an adult table tennis league even though we were at primary school. So I had a really nurturing headmaster, chris Parker, and he was just incredible. And there was so many different opportunities at primary school, at state primary school, that you know you probably wouldn't find now, which is really sad. And you know that sporting element that brought all the kids together outside of classrooms and made us, you know, work really hard when we were in the classroom and it did, it worked and and I went on to kind of take that sport to the, to the next level.
Sue Anstiss:And then at 27, you changed over to take up cycling. So why did that occur?
Sarah Storey:Well, basically the end of 2004,. After the games, after every games, I used to go and do something different for a little bit cross-training, I suppose. Quite a lot of the time it was running or something I might have been going rock climbing. And after the games in Athens I went down to the Manchester Velodrome to learn how to ride on a fixed-wheel bike. And I'd not ridden a bike much, probably all through university, and in the run-up to those games I'd commuted on my bike to college and do my air levels and then on to swim training. So I had used a bike but not a fixed wheel. So I went to the velodrome and I'd been at the Commonwealth Games and the velodrome had been kind of the site where we'd gone to and from the stadium for those ceremonies. So I was really curious. And then I went off to Australia to do some traveling and while I was in Australia, it turned out I picked up this ear infection that kind of plagued all of 2005. So cycling just became this thing I used as a cross training tool until my ears got better, except the ear infections just rolled on and on and on, and so I ended up racing on a bike as you do. And then British Cycling spotted me just doing a public session and they were a bit curious I still had really huge shoulders and they invited me to a trial over 3000 metres, which is the distance of the individual pursuit. I'm fairly kind of sort of rough and ready it's not the secret squirrel club equipment. Anyway, I did a time that was outside of the then world record by just a second. So they like, oh right, okay, well, if we put a little bit of effort into you and your equipment, you might go quite quick. So three weeks later I was racing at the European Championships with marginally better equipment and I did go a little bit quicker. I won the gold medal, broke the world record and a few days later was outside for the road events because at that point they were still doing combined track and road championships, and I won the road race in a bunch sprint. And they were like, oh, we normally have to teach people about the bunch, you've got it straight away, ok. I was just kind of using that instinct of sport and competitiveness.
Sarah Storey:So I then had a decision to make was I going back to the pool? Was I going to stay on a bike, because I had lottery funding in both sports if I'd wanted to do either. So there was no kind of financial decision to make. It was about, you know, inspiration and what I had as a you know my end goal and ambition. So I had a long, long chat with my swimming coach.
Sarah Storey:It took us ages to decide because I kept thinking well, the home games is the one I could do on cycling, but what about doing Beijing in the pool? And we had this discussion back and two and he said, if you were my daughter, I would tell you to go and get on your bike. Because he said, I just think you're not old, but you're getting that bit too old in the pool. Um, and so he, he was right, it was the right decision to make.
Sarah Storey:And on the 1st of October, literally all UK sport days would move my file out of the swimming section, put it in the cycling section and and cycling, let me have another sort of six weeks to make my personal transition to it. Because I wanted to do another competition in the pool to prove to myself, as much as anything, that I was capable of being back to the best I had been. So I raced at the national champs in that very early November of 2005 and was, you know, a few hundredths of a second outside of the world record on the 100 meter freestyle and was like yep, there we go. I was capable of making that comeback.
Sue Anstiss:It was my decision to change sports and what was tough about changing sports at 27, because you've made it sound like it was a fairly smooth transition there.
Sarah Storey:I think the biggest sort of decision was about the technicalities of cycling because, you know, I looked at myself as someone who you definitely had a disadvantage on a bike, on the swimming pool, but on a bike, you know, it's all about your legs, isn't it? And actually they proved to me very rapidly that the contribution of your upper body and having the grip on both sides is way bigger than most people understand, and certainly I understood. So the technicalities of being able to break independently, change gear either side, have balance and equal pull on the bars for the biggest of efforts, those kind of things put me at a significant disadvantage and I wasn't really sure about it. So I said at the very get-go well, I want you to make sure that you judge me physically based on the same figures you judge the able-bodied girls, because when you put me on a static bike, that's where it's at really. And they agreed. So we were able to sort of set about a process of really moving on the sport, the sport of paracycling, by having that end goal of being physically as capable, and that the only difference that we were going to allow was any technical differences that we had to find a way around.
Sarah Storey:So that might have been an adaption of some kind that would plug some of the gap, um, but make sure that, from a physical perspective, I trained in exactly the same way and I was tested in exactly the same way and I was benchmarked in the same way when it came to any of those you know key performance indicators. And that's what we did, and, I think, very rapidly. That's why I ended up in that position of and going towards the team pursuit squad, racing on the road and ultimately, by the time I got to beijing, the time that I raced on the road and ultimately, by the time I got to Beijing, the time that I raced on the track would have been seventh at the Olympics, and so, very quickly, we'd got me into that position where I was, you know, racing the likes of Rebecca Romero on the road, who went on to win that Olympic gold medal, and then you know racing alongside her, joanna Vassel, wendy Hoover, nargal, laura Trott, danny King, as we prepared for that Games in London in 2012 with their first women's team pursuit.
Sue Anstiss:And did you have any concerns at the time about the culture of cycling when it came to female cyclists?
Sarah Storey:Well, at the time there was a real drive to make sure that we sort of changed track cycling. I came into track cycling first and at that point in Beijing there was fewer events on the program. So if you look, that was where Chris Hoy won his triple gold and Victoria Pendleton won a single gold medal because there was no other event that she could have competed in. So there was a very much a need for leveling up and that was done immediately after Beijing and then, probably parallel to that, was a similar situation in paracycling, because we had fewer events in the female side and more events where we were combined with other categories and every single one of my events in Beijing was combined with another category and on a factor, as they called it. So although I was beating everybody by at least 20 seconds on the actual track my factored time I only won the race in Beijing by 23 100s and the girl I beat went on to go into the same category as me once they refreshed the categories and kind of upgraded the system. So there was a lot of development needed that to be done and it was probably um part of the kind of honor is, I suppose, to be a part of that group of women that really pushed track cycling to where it needed to be.
Sarah Storey:And now we see that even, you know, after one games, the, the team pursuit moved up to four, four thousand meters and four, four athletes, um, and so it feels like we're kind of on a similar journey with the roadside. It's just taking that little bit longer because, um, I don't know, it just seems to be more difficult and I guess the men's side of the sport has gone to extreme lengths in terms of race distances. It makes it almost. You know, do we need them to meet us halfway to make it completely equal? How are we going to solve this challenge? Because I'm not sure that it's the right thing to do to have, you know, 250-kilometre races, the women's racing being shorter, it goes from the gun and it's a full-on, full gas race for like three, three and a half hours, and that means it's it's a different offering to spectators as well as, um, you know, the fans absolutely so.
Sue Anstiss:You and your husband Barney now head up team story sport. Can you tell me a little bit more about that?
Sarah Storey:so in 2009, we set up Team Story Sport as kind of like an education business in sport. We utilised our experiences to either coach people, coach businesses, deliver motivational keynote speeches, and so just that education around what we've learned in our sporting careers and how we can apply that to other people, whether that's a corporate you know big corporate business and their executives or their high flyers or whether it's the people who are kind of the beavering away on the ground and want to know how to keep their motivation going when it feels like all you're doing is working really hard and not making any progress Right the way through to schools, colleges, anything, really anyone where they want to learn the lessons of sport. So we set up our own business to do that. That allowed both of us to have another another string to our bow, as my dad would put it and gave us that opportunity to kind of do something, put back a little bit into sport as well as as finding a way of creating a career alongside our own competitions. And then, off the back of that, we set up story racing in 2013, just as my daughter was about three months old and we decided we needed to set up a team that would enable me to race where where I needed to race, um with family ties, but also where I needed to race. Going back into paracycling as well, because one thing we'd learned from my time in team pursuing was that very much, it's not always your own decisions and what happens. And and I wanted to protect the paracycling racing because, although I was very much um, getting success and the able-bodied side of the sport, my roots have obviously always been parasport and I didn't want to ever have to be forced to make a decision between the two, because I would have made the choice to do the parasport racing, I think, but I wanted that decision to be mine so I could set up my schedule.
Sarah Storey:So story racing started out as a sponsor team and we were sponsored by a number of different companies, and then we changed the name in 2017, so the name never ever changed again and it became a more regular. People understood exactly. You know what it was that we were doing, instead of it being named after a brand and therefore saying, well, who's behind that and what was your vision for that team? Well, the vision's probably changed over the years. Initially, it was to take it into the UCI ranks and to have a UCI team but along that and alongside that provide opportunities for other women to kind of make that step up. But alongside our plans to kind of take that to that level, the UCI were obviously working alongside the various different campaigners to bring more equality to the female side of professional cycling. So now we have a situation where it's actually a lot harder to run as it should be a UCI team. You certainly can't run it from your garage like we were doing anymore, and so we've readjusted our expectations of where we can take the team and we're very much a UK-based development team, if you like, but with that reach into the professional ranks when needed so we can provide the right opportunities with links to race organisers. But we're not a full-time professional outfit on the road, probably from January to October, which wouldn't be practical with a young family. So we have that experience at the higher level, but we obviously also then have that nurturing opportunity at the UK level and at the moment we have juniors or youth riders, junior riders under 23 and seniors and paracyclists, and so we manipulate the makeup of the team according to the right type of athletes and where we think we can make a difference to an individual.
Sarah Storey:And and how was it all going pre-covid? Well, the team was going great. We were going to. We were looking towards three or four riders getting selection for the tokyo games. Um, maybe even five, I think, if we had an outside, you know, really, really great selection time. We, you know, we were looking to race abroad. We have links to the skoda dsi cycling academy where we're trying to develop and nurture riders under that banner whether this is our time campaign that skoda have set up. So we had kind of like a lot of irons in the fire, if you like, to support as many different women as we could who had different challenges and different ambitions. Um, and so when lockdown happened, we had to cancel the trips that we'd got planned abroad. We thought we might be racing in the Netherlands and Sweden and various different places in the run up to national championships at the end of June, and then obviously, that would then lead us into a final build up into Tokyo. So whether we can replicate that next year remains to be seen.
Sarah Storey:Obviously, lots of things have changed in the commercial side of sport and the availability of sponsorship is still a little bit unknown, and I think, um, you know, you, you look down at the lower ranked teams, if you like, and those are the ones that aren't as 100% sure of how they fit into that bigger picture, because the bigger picture hasn't been kind of completely ironed out yet.
Sarah Storey:Um, so we have seen the return of the women's world tour and with Strada Bianchi at the weekend, and we're hopeful that other races will go ahead. But as we see the ebb and flow of the of the virus um, and this sort of threat of a second wave or the final, you know, weeks of the first wave, however it is, it really is a little bit of an unknown, and we know already that the uh, the women who were planning to ride the Tour de France a day ahead of the men, their plans have had to change. So it really is a lot of unknown and we just have to try and be patient and hope for the best and think that next year there will be, you know, a way for us to rectify what we couldn't do this year and still provide opportunities.
Sue Anstiss:And what's the position like for young women now who want to race professionally? I read Nicole Cook's book a few years ago now. That feels, isn't it, when it was all a bit shocking really. But have things changed significantly for women in that space?
Sarah Storey:Yeah, women's professional cycling. There are some fantastic teams out there and we had Eleanor Baxter on our team last year who got bronze in Harrogan in the junior world championship time trial. She moved on to trek segafredo, which is where lizzie diagnan is, and they have a superb setup which is linked into the men's team. There are other teams, like sunweb, which is where um a colleague at british cycling, matt winston, is now one of the main main coaches and they have a men's and women's team and I think that's where fifa georgie has gone. She's a British rider as well. So there's a significant number of very big men's teams who've got a women's team. Moe Star is another one, and so all of those teams have provided a very similar setup for the men and the women. Mitchelton Scott is the Australian team that does that. So there are some very, very big teams who are doing the right thing. And then there are some incredibly good women's teams who are just standalone female teams, like bowls dolmans, who are going to take on a new title sponsorship and they're probably one of the sort of beacon teams, if you like, because they had a very long-standing sponsorship with bowls um rental and the dolmans um gardening and that ended at the same time, but they managed to find a sponsor to take them on to another four years to to apply to be in the women's world tour and to hopefully be that um world tour team from next year. And so, in a market where people were unsure, to see that happen was really, really encouraging and that's been, you know, a sort of a mainstay of the women's peloton for many, many years.
Sarah Storey:And then you have other teams, like team tipco from the States, who've also been a very well-established, long-lasting team, and they're headed up. Their head coach is Rachel Hedeman, who used to race for Great Britain. So there's a really strong network of incredible women who are working from off the back of their own careers and they're now working in the sport. So that brings around that change that you perhaps need where previously women have said that they've not had the best experience. Obviously, when the women come back into their own sport and try and move it along, they bring that experience of either being a colleague of someone who had a hard time or having had to experience it and not really know how to tackle it. So it's really exciting to see those women. Georgia Bronzini is involved as well in the women's peloton now, and so you've got so many names that are coming back into the sport, and so I think that gives it a much brighter future.
Sue Anstiss:I'm so pleased you've painted such a positive picture of where things are. That's lovely to hear. You've obviously now got two young children, charlie and Louisa, and you've been a real trailblazer for female athletes in terms of, I guess, returning not just after one trial but after two. Were there women that inspired you?
Sarah Storey:I guess for me I watched Tani have Caris in. Well, caris is probably nearly 20 and so it's such a long time ago, but I was really inspired by the fact that she came back and I think when I was having Louisa I was like, yeah, I can race the world championships. Louisa will be 10 weeks old because Tani had raced. You know, she'd kind of made everything possible. She's one of those people who've been present my whole career. She won four gold medals in Barcelona and she's always been an incredible support.
Sarah Storey:When I wanted to find out how to get involved with the motivational speaking, she was the person I went to. And Tanya gave me that mentorship that I could blossom under. And I think if you look across, there are other women. You know Paula Radcliffe had children, but even further back than that perhaps Liz McColgan, and so there are lots of women who've come back after having children, but they're perhaps not always being celebrated. But then I don't know whether that's so much of a problem, because we don't want to make it out to be something that's unusual. It's just a normal part of your life when it's ready for you as an individual.
Sarah Storey:I think there are some things that don't need to go. You know they don't need to be sort of out there. Are you planning to have a baby is an incredibly personal question, but somehow certain parts of the press seem to think it's okay to ask. Somehow certain parts of the press seem to think it's okay to ask it's like well, mind your own business. Thanks very much, and it's something I actually said after the Games in Rio, because you know, as a woman, you just don't know. You might fall pregnant, you might not, but you know, having one child or having two it's your own personal decision and if you have more, then great, but yeah.
Sarah Storey:So I think there was lots of other women you could look to and think it is something that's possible. And I think now we see. You know riders like Lizzie Dagnon and Laura Kenny, and they've had children. And then you know even a colleague of mine, nyree Kindred, who had her first child, ella, 15 months before the Games in London. It was just amazing to see her come back and take silver in the pool after. You know a baby, just a few. Yeah, baby, that was still very tiny really.
Sue Anstiss:And did you ever think you would come back stronger after motherhood?
Sarah Storey:I really, really didn't know whether I'd be one of those women that come back stronger. Another colleague of mine, jeanette Chippington, who now is in the canoe, she raced when she was six months pregnant in the pool with her first and I remember just being in awe of this bump gliding through the water so beautifully. And she came back stronger and she's obviously gone from strength to strength because she switched sports and she's now in the boat as well, in the canoe. So I think you kind of wonder, and Nairi told me she definitely didn't come back stronger. But I was really fortunate that I was one of those ladies that blossomed in pregnancy. I had no sickness, it was just something that I absolutely loved being pregnant and I raced with Charlie when I was pregnant with him. I didn't race with Louisa. I raced national champs when I was very early pregnancy and then raced time trials right the way through to about 22 weeks and then kind of got a bit too big.
Sue Anstiss:And how do you juggle the life of a, an elite athlete and a parent, especially in a sport that does require so much traveling and training?
Sarah Storey:well, I have the most amazing husband and having Barney on the side, who knows all about the ins and outs of it. He was an elite road racer before he turned to the track, so he understands both sides of the sport brilliantly, and I think that's probably one of the reasons why I am one of the few athletes who's doing track and road to the same level, because you know I have his support and he's like well, why can't you? You don't need to specialize. And I didn't want to specialize as a schoolgirl when I was told to choose between swimming, table tennis, netball, cross country rounders and all that. So why would I want to choose to specialise, as it were? Now, so his support. He's been a full-time dad since Louisa arrived with his coaching business as and when he can find the time to tap away on his keyboard and that's the beauty, I suppose, of the mobile phones and he stays in touch with his riders that way. So we're really fortunate, and he obviously then can be right at the wheel for the team car when we're away on the road.
Sarah Storey:My parents have always traveled everywhere, so, with or without the grandchildren, they've always been alongside the racing, from the stands or from the roadside. So they've come along with two extra little ones and we've got some fabulous pictures. The Tour of California we seem to get loads and loads of pictures it may be in the American journalists were just in awe of this little girl, who was with me at all the press conferences as well, and it was just lovely. And then I guess the only time that we've had to kind of make decisions is around school time. So we've done a lot of homeschooling, I suppose.
Sarah Storey:So it did set us up well for lockdown, but we didn't want to do too much. We wanted to make sure she had, um, that sort of settled status of being in the classroom and and knowing her routine at school as well. So we've been fairly selective, probably since Charlie arrived on, just how much time out in term time we will take and and it's just worked well. And I think being selective, as I've got older in the sport, means that I can kind of pick and choose and maintain the very best performances without that risk of injury from being on the road, you know, week in, week out.
Sue Anstiss:Everybody needs a Barney. It's a proper team story, isn't it really?
Sarah Storey:Yeah, barney is the absolute hero of the whole family and he doesn't get enough credit.
Sue Anstiss:Give him a big shout out there. Um, you've obviously won so much competing over the and I know it's a question you're often asked but what does drive you now to keep going back for more medals?
Sarah Storey:Well, I think now that the children are with us, it provides a completely different dynamic and their enjoyment and experience and learnings are all part of the motivation for me, because I can provide the opportunity for us to do rather unusual things as a family by still being, you know, right at the top of the sport, and they get to meet people that perhaps they wouldn't have met otherwise, and we get to go to places and and parts of places that you don't normally go to off the beaten track, say. So I think it's part of that whole life experience and that journey that we're going on together. You know, my enjoyment of racing hasn't waned. I love racing. I still get the butterflies and think why am I doing this? You know what's the outcome going to be. Am I going to be good enough today? The natural experience that any athlete will have. But then challenging yourself in that way and giving that challenge and sort of learning to your kids is a completely different level. And I know a lot of athletes who have children who've said what, now that I'm racing with my kids here, it just feels even better.
Sarah Storey:So for me, I think Charlie experiencing his first games a year older than he would have done. If it was this month, then it means hopefully he'll remember it. And then Louisa said to me the other week and before before lockdown it was, we were on a training camp. She goes you know what, mom, you can't ever stop racing because I just love these training camps, okay. So yeah, I'm gonna be going to the games. Her first games will be my last games and all this joking, um. But yeah, it's one of those situations where I think hopefully I'll know when I know, and I think I remember hearing someone like Matt Pinson say that you know when it's the right time, and I don't think I'll ever declare you know, get me off my bike and never put me back on again, as Steve Redgrave did at that time. But yeah, it's just, it's just a way of life now that involves that really hard work and I've always thrived off really hard work, so I think that's a good thing.
Sue Anstiss:And did that extra year to Tokyo affect you in a different way, perhaps to other athletes at the stage of career you're at?
Sarah Storey:I think a lot of people expected the extra year to be a really big thing for me, a really big problem. I think I'd kind of accepted, before the decision was even made, that something was going to happen to the Games, because it was logical that we unless they came up with a really clever quarantine plan, it didn't seem possible that we could all travel to Japan within a few months, given the severity of the virus. So when the announcement came I was like yeah, there we go, it was coming, we just needed to be patient. And it was difficult that you know. No one had ever experienced lockdown or this, you know. Certainly swimmers had never experienced not being allowed to go to the pool, and it must have been horrible. We were fortunate, as a road cyclist, we had that one slot of exercise a day, so the only decision we had to make was whether that was a walk with the kids or a bike ride for yourself. So turbo trainers came in very handy and I think I expected something and I was delighted it wasn't just completely cancelled, because I think that would have been one of the real possibilities, given all the other logistics that are around the games. So it was good to hear that it was only a postponement, as it were, because it could have been a lot worse. So now we hope we just keep and wait and be patient and not known when I was going to start racing again once I was pregnant. I think it's a similar mentality of patience. You know it's going to happen at some point. You just have to be ready. And that's an adaptability athletes haven't had to have before. But we have to be adaptable and this is a case where you know we're needing to be very, very adaptable.
Sarah Storey:And what events are you training for in Tokyo? So I'm training for the same four events that are won in London, that are won three of the four of in Rio. So the individual pursuit is on the day after the opening ceremony. I think that's now the 25th of August, it was announced yesterday. Then, two days later, is the 500-meter time trial, which is an event I won in London. I came fourth in Rio. The sprinters turned up in Rio. So if they don't turn up again in Tokyo, I'll take them out again. And then on the 31st of August it's the road time trial and the 2nd of September is the road race. So then there's a couple of days and it's the closing ceremony. So, yeah, it's good to have the schedule out again. It's exactly the same as it was, had it been this year in terms of the order of events. So, yeah, we just build back up again and see see what next year holds. Are you 44 this year? I'm 43 this year, so I'll be 44 just after the games next year next year.
Sue Anstiss:How does your body respond now versus to training when you were like a 14 year old?
Sarah Storey:well, it's interesting, um, looking at how my body responds, because I had chronic fatigue syndrome as a 20, 21 year old, and so I really couldn't. I really wasn't in a right state. I got to the point where I ended up having six weeks complete rest and then started on five minutes a day in the pool and my coach at the time, colin Hood, was just incredible at keeping me on the straight and narrow to get me to recover. So now I kind of feel that this strength I have is a real blessing, because I can go out for, you know, hours and hours on end, and the main challenge for training is just being correctly fueled and having enough fluid. So, you know, the, the amount of food I take on a ride is absolutely ridiculous. I usually need to eat all through my rides, um, and, yeah, just keep on top of those fluids. But I think it's the intensity that, um, online racing has given me during lockdown, because I haven't been able to race outside and that's maintained a level of fitness. But, yeah, so far I'm kind of holding on to this sort of gradual rise.
Sarah Storey:I think I feel like I'm still improving. There's still things I can do better, which is good, and we're exploring some of the technical things that I'd never had the opportunity to do before. So I went into the wind tunnel at the Boardman Performance Centre, which I think is sadly a casualty of lockdown now in terms of a business, but I went in there for the first time last July and now I'm working with a company to design some 3D printed handlebars. So I said to my husband can we really justify the cost of this? I'm in my 40s. He said, yeah, but you've got to do all the bits you can to find the absolute best version of you. And so, yes, I was like, right, okay, as I write the check, shaking hand, um, but we're, but we're looking at the opportunities to to make me better from all different angles, and that whole idea that you you leave no stone unturned, and the marginal gains concept that cycling is so well known for.
Sue Anstiss:Absolutely, and you talk there about eating. Fueling is obviously so important, so has that always been, I guess, a key part of your training and the whole package through your career.
Sarah Storey:Well, I suffered with an eating disorder when I was 15, I think. Coming back from the games I was a big, big. Well, I wasn't a big athlete, but to some people I was a big athlete. I was a 14-year-old who looked like she was in her 20s, I was strong, I was very physically capable, and so there was just one comment about and I just got oh, I'm more muscly than I should be. So I had maybe I don't know seven, eight months of really disordered eating and I was never diagnosed with any formal condition. But it was very close and my GP was amazing and she said you don't want to be diagnosed, you don't want to be put on that path because there are significant things that then you have to move through in terms of a process to come off of that diagnosis. So she sorted me out, which I was really grateful for. Well I am now.
Sarah Storey:I don't know whether I was at the time, because it was a bit of control that I had, and maybe it was also a bit of a reaction to the reaction I'd had from my peers at school and bullying.
Sarah Storey:I felt like I had control over my eating, whereas I didn't have very much control over anything else at school in terms of their attitude towards me.
Sarah Storey:So, having had that experience, I think that I'm well placed to kind of spot it in other people.
Sarah Storey:How I help them get through that, I'm not so sure, but if I can help them to understand the importance of nutrients and of having a nutritious diet, so we focus on the things that are going to do your body good instead of whether or not it's got a calorie in it, then those things really help. And now you know very, very aware that we don't we don't count calories. We look at the nutrition value of food and what it does for your body as a you know, as an engine, rather than you know anything else. So it's interesting for me now as well working in active travel and the whole idea of the obesity strategy that links into getting people more active is that focusing on the positive that you can do rather than you know counting the negative, and that's something that I've not seen yet, and I think we need to focus on how you can make yourself better by doing things positively rather than banning things because they're you know that they're negative. So I think we've still got some way to go on that side.
Sue Anstiss:Absolutely, and we've obviously seen a massive increase in cycling during lockdown. And I realise you're now the active travel commissioner for Sheffield region. It's a new role but it's not always been a sport that women have flocked to in the way they have running. Why do you think that has been in the past.
Sarah Storey:Well, cycling has a significantly fewer women than men, in terms of everyday cycling as well, and we did a study at British Cycling and found that 66% of women just cited safety, and actually most people just cite safety, not just women, but it seems to be something that um is more prevalent in in the female population that concern around you, know the behavior of other road users and and how the greatest threat of harm and of a motor vehicle or a larger vehicle could do to them, and you are incredibly vulnerable on a bike, on a horse, when you're running with pedestrians and we see far too many instances of pedestrians killed on pavements by vehicles as well. So the whole spectrum of out and about on our roads is just one that needs looking at, and that's what was announced last week. The government want to redress the highway code and finally pull it to the 21st century, because it's been added to but never kind of taken away from. I suppose it's a sport that can give us so much if we can address those safety concerns, and running feels a lot less of an issue in terms of safety because you can take yourself off the beaten track and it's a little bit of me time away from having to think about other things.
Sarah Storey:And with cycling there's a huge amount of concentration perhaps needed, or it's perceived that you need a huge amount more concentration, and actually cycling is no more dangerous.
Sarah Storey:You're just as likely to trip over when you're running as you are likely to fall off your bike, but I think it's just that the road conditions feel so horrible and we just need more segregated infrastructure. So it keeps us incredibly busy, because it's important that when we're starting to reallocate road space, that it's not seen by a huge motoring lobby as being an attack against them. It's actually for them as well, because if we can get many more of those short car journeys off the road, then those businesses that rely on vehicles to deliver equipment and to carry out the services that they do, they'll have more space for themselves and for their you know employees and the vast majority of car journeys that are made are less than five kilometers, which is an absolutely cyclable distance, and even in the UK, 14 kilometers is our average commute. And with the advent of e-bikes, you know, if we have the right infrastructure, almost every single journey could potentially be done without the need for a motor vehicle.
Sue Anstiss:Fantastic yeah, that's so true. And just in closing, if you had the chance now to go back and talk to that 14 year old self standing on the blocks there, what advice would you give her today?
Sarah Storey:today, I'd give her the same advice as I was given, because I think one of the reasons why I've been able to do what I've done and continue to enjoy my sport and and have success is because I was, you know, looked after so well as a teenager. So my parents always told me to focus on my own performance and to control what I could control, which is was a very, um, you know, profound thing to say, because it's all um part of the marginal gains concept and the way that Steve Peters taught us all so well within cycling. So to have all of their advice confirmed as being kind of gold standard was just, you know, it thrilled me that I'd been following it anyway. And also a piece of advice that my swimming coach, in the run up to the games in Atlanta, said. He said you know, everybody can be ordinary, but you need to be extraordinary, and it was a really clever way of using the two words and I just thought you know what? That's right.
Sarah Storey:You know you watch other athletes that have done things and they've been talked about the high jumper that stayed back to do extra work, or the Johnny Wilkinsons that stayed back to do extra kicks or whatever, and that, for me, was all part of it, and I remember watching a documentary about Sarah Hardcastle, who was one of my absolute heroes of the 84 games because she was called Sarah and she was so young as well, at 15. But she talked about working by herself and training on her own and really thriving as an individual, not needing to have any external, you know motivation. She had it all intrinsically and for me that, you know, really rung true with this idea of being extraordinary.
Sue Anstiss:So, yeah, those two pieces of advice have stuck with me my whole career what an incredible woman, and I do love that idea of being extra ordinary in order to succeed in sport.
Sue Anstiss:I wish Sarah every success in her new role as the active travel commissioner, and also for her and her team ahead of the Tokyo Games. If you're enjoying the game changers, please do take a minute to review and rate the podcast, as it makes a big difference to raising our profile and ensuring more people get to hear the stories of these trailblazing women in sport. Another big thank you to Sport England for their kind support of the Game Changers, and thanks also to Sam Walker from what Goes On Media, who's our very talented executive producer. You can find out more about all 41 of my incredible guests from this and the previous series at fearlesswomencouk, or come and say hello on social media, where you'll find us at Sue Anstis or at the Game Changers on Twitter, facebook and Instagram. My guest next week is Alison Oliver, the Chief Executive of the Youth Sport Trust, the charity building a brighter future for young people through the power of sport.
Ali Oliver:I've come across plenty of women for whom sport has damaged them, whether that is the way in which it's been delivered or whether there's been sort of no sense of the value and purpose of this thing called sport ever articulated to girls.
Sue Anstiss:The Game Changers Fearless women in sport.
