Dame Sarah Storey had no intention of quitting after the ‘lockdown Games’

When Dame Sarah Storey made history with a 17th gold medal last summer it could have been the perfect moment to ride off into the sunset, but Britain’s greatest ever Paralympian had already decided what she called the “lockdown Games” were no way to sign off.

Storey, 43, took victory in the individual pursuit, road race and time trial in Tokyo to break Mike Kenny’s British medal record, but while she rightly celebrated her achievement a Paralympics hugely compromised by the Covid-19 pandemic were not the joyous occasion they should have been.

Husband Barney, the former rider who doubles as her coach and confidant, is usually the first person Sarah speaks to after any race, but he was back at home, 5,000 miles away looking after children Louisa and Charlie, and unreachable for hours.

“My dad has got two photos on the wall of his lounge,” Storey told the PA news agency. “One is from the London Games with 10,000 people behind me at the finish of the road race, and one is from Japan with nobody.

“The two photos are almost the same, my arm is in the same position celebrating, but the difference behind me is stark. It shows how hard those Games were, and how important it is that the people who get you in position to start a race are there with you.”

For Storey, who races both for Great Britain and for her own Storey Racing squad, family is the team that comes first. Race schedules and training camps are devised with an eye on school holidays – and Storey already has diary entries for pretty much every month leading up to the Paris Games in 2024.

“It’s no secret the nucleus of my team is my family,” Storey added. “The way that cycling is, you could be away for a long time and I didn’t have children to leave them behind.

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