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Dame Sarah Storey continued to make history at the Para-cycling Road World Championships on Saturday, claiming the 39th world title of her career in the C5 road race.
The British rider also stormed to victory in the C5 individual time trial earlier this week, meaning that this is the 10th time she has done the double at the Worlds, winning both of her events.
A former swimmer, the 46-year-old has won 45 world titles across her sporting career, 39 of which have come in cycling disciplines, including time trials, road races and track events.
“39 in cycling, to add to the mere six that I got in the swimming pool when I was a youngster,” Storey told Cycling Weekly post-race. “It’s immense, I’m sure it’ll start to sink in. It’s been an incredible month, the Paralympic Games. I’m obviously on good form, I couldn’t have wished for a better season really.
Asked if she would continue, in a category she has dominated for over a decade, Storey replied: “I don’t know yet, I need to sit down and let this sink in first. I’ll never be far away from my bike, I cycle to work a lot, and that provides me with a relaxed platform off of which to put the race season together.”
The race was run in grim conditions, with Zürich experiencing more of the heavy rain it has suffered from all week, but this worked in the 19-time Paralympic champion’s favour.
“The start of the race wasn’t too bad, it was drizzling, but at some point in the finishing circuit the heavens opened harder than ever,” she explained. “The girls were taking it to the climb pretty hard, which suited me. Stringing it out, which was a good pace, gave me a platform off of which to unleash my time trial power. When it’s wet like this it’s harder to get out of the saddle without your wheels slipping, so that suits riders like me who go well in the saddle.
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“I managed to get over the top with about 1:50, which was more than I’d anticipated, which also meant I could take the descent nice and steady. Once I was on the finishing circuit, it was just a power loop. Keep doing that, make sure I had enough to eat and drink and make sure I’m heading off to the finish.
“It’s just about making the calculations that you’re going the right speed, the speed that you know will keep you ahead, but also be sustainable. Choosing the places on the course to eat and drink, but I didn’t need to drink much today because the water was seeping in through the skin but making sure you have enough energy, because you’re on the TT power for most of the race, on the limit.”
Zürich 2024 is the first-ever time the para-cycling and able bodied Road Worlds have happened at the same time, something Storey has spent a long time campaigning for. However, it is currently destined to be the last, with no successor event planned.
“I looked at the Road Worlds when I was putting my name down to be selected for the women’s events, and I thought there were so many gaps, so many days where there is nothing happened,” she said. “For people who are giving up their roads to us, maybe we could fill those roads with para events. We obviously had a fantastic platform in Yorkshire 2019 where we had a C1 event the day before the Worlds started. That showed there was an apetite there from the fans as well as the nations.
“Now we need more organisers to step up and do that. Because there isn’t one in the pipeline so far. The mega-Worlds are happening again in 2027, but the logistics are such that it’s tricky. This is it, this is what we train for, and this is what I hoped would happen in my career, and it has.”
The same C5 race saw Morgan Newberry, a British cyclist at the other end of her career, take her first medal at the Worlds: “I’ve worked hard for this, and it’s nice to get the result today It just feels like it has been a long time coming, and I’m glad I’ve followed the journey and kept going, and now I’ve got silver.”
She too has appreciated the combined Worlds: “It has been really cool, it’s great just to have the media around and everyone is obviously watching, and the course was a level up to a anything we’ve had before. That played to my advantage really, it was really good.”
Also on Saturday, GB took gold in the women’s C1 road race through Fran Brown, and second and fourth in the C2 road race through Daphne Schrager and Amelia Cass, respectively.
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