Paris 2024 Paralympics: Sarah Storey wins 18th gold on 'appalling' course (2024)

Published

4 September 2024

Britain's Sarah Storey described the Paris Paralympics cycling time trial course as "appalling" after winning her 18th Games gold medal.

Storey won the women's road event for a fifth successive Paralympics on a C5 event course measuring just 14.1km - the first time she has raced a Games course shorter than 22km.

She was one of 13 British riders competing on Wednesday in road time trials, and there were three further medal achievements for ParalympicsGB women.

Fran Brown - who subsequently revealed, external she dislocated a shoulder when knocked off her bicycle three days previously - won silver in the women's C1-3 category in the morning.

In the afternoon, Sophie Unwin finished second in the women's B with pilot Jenny Holl - ahead of Lora Fachie and guide Corrine Hall who took bronze.

Storey got the better of French hope Heidi Gaugain and then said athletes had appealed to Games organisers about the length of the women's race but heard nothing back.

"It's a short race. This is the shortest Paralympic time trial we have ever had, and I think it's a real shame because we don't get to showcase Para-sport in the way we want to," Storey said.

"You'll have to ask organisers. There's plenty of time in the day for us to do two laps like the men. Having fought so hard for parity in women's cycling, to not have it is a real disappointment.

"I've had to put that aside and focus on what I could control, because I couldn't control the race distance. But I hope they never do this to the women again, because it has been appalling.

"It's a hilly 10km. I do lots of those at home so I have plenty of practice. But in championships you expect a race of minimum 22km, that's what we've done in all the other Paralympic Games.

"Look back to that incredible course in Beijing, Brands Hatch with all the fans, Rio was flat but longer, Tokyo we had the motor circuit... three laps, it was a real challenge.

"This has been the most disappointing in that sense, given what came before it."

Only one women's road time trial - the B event for visually impaired athletes - was contested over the two-lap distance of 28.3km, compared to seven men's events.

The other six women's time trials were just one lap of the 14.1km course, as were five men's races.

When asked if riders had spoken to Paris 2024 organisers, Storey said: "We did ask the question, absolutely. You can ask, you might not hear anything back."

Asked if the competitors had heard anything, she said they had not.

The 46-year-old from Poynton, Cheshire, had trailed Gaugain by more than seven seconds after 5.8km, but she stormed back in the final section to retain the title and win her 13th cycling gold to add to the five she won as a swimmer before switching sports prior to Beijing 2008.

Team-mate Brown also expressed disappointment with the length of the course, although she also had some praise.

"I enjoyed it. It was different," Brown said. "I would have liked a bit of a longer course as well, we are capable of riding a bit further, but we all did the same course on the day so make the most of it."

Storey, who is competing solely in road events at Paris 2024, is taking part in her ninth Games - the most ever for a British athlete.

She will look to add a 19th gold in the road race on Friday.

Among active Paralympians, Belarusian swimmer Ihar Boki has overtaken Storey in terms of most gold medals won in a career, reaching 21 after his five victories in Paris.

Storey won Wednesday's time trial in 20 minutes 22.15 seconds, putting her 4.69 seconds ahead of silver medallist Gaugain - 27 years her junior. Alana Forster of Australia won bronze.

In spite of her feelings towards the course, Storey was delighted to extend her record as Britain's most decorated Paralympian with her 29th medal.

She first competed in the Games at Barcelona in 1992.

Storey was particularly pleased to win gold while her two children - 11-year-old Louisa and six-year-old Charlie - watched on.

"Louisa said to me last night at dinner, 'This is the first Games I’m going to remember'," Storey said.

"I'm utterly delighted. I had a target to get five gold medals [in time trial]. I feel so, so proud.

"You can put the challenges aside, we race the course and prepare for it, but it is brilliant, to have friends and family here, the cheering off the start line. I'm so pleased."

While Storey was unhappy with the course Brown was lucky to be on it at all, as she revealed in an Instagram post after winning silver on Wednesday.

"Nothing quite like being knocked off your bike and dislocating your shoulder three days before the most important race of your life to enhance the preparation," she wrote.

"I had zero more to give today but thanks to the whole British Cycling team who made it possible to race my heart out.

"Once I’ve got over the sleep deprivation I’m sure it’ll feel even more amazing but for now it feels like some crazy dream to get a medal of any kind."

She is the second British cyclist to medal at these Games days after being injured while riding, after Jaco van Gass revealed he was hit by a car and knocked from his bike in Paris shortly before winning track gold.

On a packed day for the British cycling team, Matthew Robertson came fifth in the men's C2 event, while Daphne Schrager finished fifth behind Brown in the women's C1-3.

A day that started with medals for GB ended well too, as Unwin and Fachie both got on the podium - albeit having finished more than a minute behind Ireland's Katie-George Dunlevy who dominated on her way to gold.

Fachie, who celebrated her 36th birthday on Wednesday as well as her sixth Paralympic medal, added to the bronze she won on the track in Paris in the individual pursuit.

She said: "It's great to get a second medal of the Games, we left it all out there."

Pilot Hall added: "It's definitely been a good day for the women of the team, so bring on the road races in a couple of days."

There was disappointment for Tokyo Paralympic champion Benjamin Watson in the men's C3 as he could only come fourth in Paris, finishing 54.1 seconds behind the gold medallist, France's Thomas Peyroton-Dartet.

Watson finished ahead of team-mates Fin Graham in sixth and van Gass, who took eighth.

"I couldn't go any harder, but I'm gutted," Watson said. "I went out hard, then parked a bit in the second lap, while the French guy [Peyroton-Dartet] just accelerated."

Two-time Rio 2016 gold medallist Stephen Bate, who won silver on the track earlier in these Games, came fifth in the men's B time trial, as the 47-year-old competes in what may be his final Paralympics.

Archie Atkinson, who missed out on track gold following a last-lap crash, continued the trend of fifth-place British finishes, in the men's C4, while team-mate Blaine Hunt came 11th in the men's C5.

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