Road Cycling

5 Things you probably didn’t know about… Dame Sarah Storey

Some interesting facts about one of Britains most decorated athletes...

She’s one of Britain’s most decorated athletes. She’s won Olympic medals in swimming and cycling, and she’s a strong advocate for women’s cycling and equal rights. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve almost certainly heard of Dame Sarah Storey.

Dame Sarah Storey on Pregnancy, Reality TV and Women in Sports

Sarah was appointed an MBE in 1998, an OBE after the Beijing Olympics in 2008, and in 2013 she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. Along with husband, Barney, Sarah has launched professional women’s cycling teams to help promote and nurture young British talent, and on top of all that, she became a mother in 2013 to her first child, and again in 2017 to her second.

But did you know…

I used to be a county table-tennis champion as an under 13 and under 16!
I played on the county netball team until they discovered I was an international swimmer which is when I was told that I couldn’t play netball if I was training for another sport!
My Granny’s Uncle was a water polo player for Great Britain in the 1900 and 1904 Olympics! That’s the nearest relative that my family could find to explain the aquatic gene I have!
I met my husband Barney at a pre-Games training camp in 2004. It took him 10 months to ask me on a date but then he proposed another 11 months later! We married in our end of season break in 2007.
When I was a swimmer I used to escape the British winter and take myself off to Australia for winter training. This would entail backpacking and dropping in on the local swimming club or 50m pool where public sessions always had lane swimming. It never bothered me to travel alone and I often bumped into people I knew quite by coincidence!