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11 Paralympic gold medals in track cycling
Sarah Storey began her athletic career at age 14 as a swimmer, competing in the Paralympic Games where she won four gold medals. She ended her swimming career due to ear problems. She switched to cycling in 2005 and joined the national para-cycling team.One year later, she broke the world record for the 3-kilometer individual pursuit in para-cycling.She is now the most successful British para-athlete (she was born with a deformity that renders her left hand unusable) of all time: 14 Paralympic gold medals, including those from swimming. She has become a leading figure in women’s para-cycling as well as in events for able-bodied athletes.At the London Paralympic Games, Sarah came close to winning gold in all four of her events: the 500m time trial, the individual pursuit, the road race, and the time trial. Today, she and her husband run Storey Racing, a women’s cycling team whose motto is #BestVersionOfYou. "It's about providing girls with opportunities to move forward"
"I’d love to see them win a bike race at the UCI level. I want to dive into the world of team time trials and see where we can compete."As an advocate for British cycling policy, Sarah notes that roads are not designed to encourage children to ride bikes. "I’d like cycling to be fully integrated into the education system so it becomes a priority for our children." She also plays a role within the Sheffield City Council area in making her ambitious transportation vision a reality. Sarah is the first Active Travel Commissioner for the Sheffield City Region. If you’d like to learn more about Active Travel, click here. Sarah successfully balances motherhood with her running career. She is currently training for the Tokyo Paralympic Games (now postponed to August 2021).
You can follow Sarah on Instagram @damesarahstorey
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JENNY GRAHAM Scottish, 1981
Jenny, the fastest woman to cycle around the world,started biking in 2004 and specializes in ultra-distance cycling and long-distance bike trips. In 2017, she received a scholarship from The Adventure Syndicate, a collective of women endurance cyclists.This scholarship and her involvement with the syndicate (which immediately recognized her great potential) enabled her to compete in races such as the Arizona Trail Race. In addition to racing, she enjoys touring on her mountain bike—in the Alps, the Pyrenees, and Romania, for example.She also loves hiking at high altitudes, climbing 4,000-meter peaks, and sleeping in mountain huts or (at lower elevations) under the stars. Todayshe is the co-director of The Adventure Syndicate and gives talks about her adventures around the world. Yes, in 2018, Jenny Graham broke the women’s world cycling record!(previously held by Italian cyclist Paola Gianotti), Jenny achieved it in 124 days. It is a Guinness World Record.Her feat also helped launch Guinness World Records Day, which encourages people to go out on an adventure and become (perhaps) another female record holder. Focuson her round-the-world record:
"There wasn't a single day when I felt like giving up. Once I started, I was committed—I was always going to see this journey through."A journey of 18,000 miles across 4 continents and 15 countries.If you want to know more about his adventure, click here; forthe French version, click here; and the video is here
You can also follow her on Instagram: @jennygrahamis_
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MARIANNE VOS Dutch, 1987 Considered the best cyclist of her generation, Marianne has racked up victories in road racing, track racing, mountain bike racing, and cyclocross.
To sum up:
- Three-time world champion in road racing.
- 7-time cyclocross world champion
- 3-time Giro Rosa champion
- 19 wins in 2019
Marianne started cycling at the age of 6 and began training with her brother's team before going on to make a name for herself. She won her first cyclo-cross and road world championships at age 19. And at age 21, she became the first cyclist to be crowned world champion in all three disciplines: road, track, and cyclocross. She loves achieving her goals: "I love that feeling when everything comes together. You’ve completed your training, you’re well prepared, and you can do exactly what you set out to do. " In 2004, when she won her first rainbow jersey, she took a chance on a professional cycling career at a time when there weren’t many women who became full-time professionals. She says in an interview: "I couldn’t ask for a better life; my passion is my career, and I have the opportunity to really make a difference in women’s cycling. I love racing, I love training, I love inspiring others, and most importantly, I still love riding my bike!" She ends her career on a high note: "I didn’t want to end my career with too much training. I wanted to end my career at the top of my game, and that was the only reason for me." Asan ambassador for women’s cycling, her dream is to make cycling more accessible and popular among women. At the same time, she is also an ambassador for "Jeugdfondssportencultuur": a Dutch charity organization that helps children from low-income families join sports clubs or participate in cultural activities. She is also involved with the organization "Youth United for Sri Lanka."
Watch a video about Marianne Vos: here To follow his daily life in cycling and his everyday life on Instagram: @mariannevosofficial
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ARLENIS SIERRA Cuban 1992 Arlenis Sierra is a track and road cyclist. She started cycling at the age of 11 to channel her boundless energy. Encouraged by her father, she enrolled in a small sports center in her village (Manzanillo, Cuba). So she grew up in Cuba, a country where the prospects of a career in cycling are hard to imagine, if not unimaginable. Cuba lacks infrastructure, bicycles, and a budget dedicated to organizing races or paying riders. But she remembers that time very clearly: "I was perfectly happy. I wasn't really thinking about the future. People would call me 'poor,' but I realized that even though I wasn't well off, there were always people who were worse off." (quotes from her interview with Procycling)
At just 19 years old, she won the race at the 2011 Pan American Games. In 2016, the president of the Cuban Cycling Federation brought her to Switzerland to take part in a development program for promising riders. This gave her the opportunity to discover a new approach to cycling, different from the one in her home country. In 2017, she left Cuba for good (but not forever) to begin her career as a professional cyclist in Europe—in Italy, to be exact.
During that same year, Arlenis came in second in the Trofeo: the greatest success of her career. An iconic photo has captured this moment: we see Arlenis beaming with joy, as if she had won the race. She says: "Everyone was asking me why I raised my arms when I finished second. I know full well I didn't win! I did it because of the emotion that came over me," Sierra tells Procycling. "Lots of people said to me, 'You don't celebrate second place,' and that annoyed me a bit.'Who are they to say what I should or shouldn't be happy with?'" Most recently, in 2018, she won the Tour of Guangxi in China. She is far from being done with her career! "Becoming world champion is a dream. I think it's a dream shared by all cyclists, all athletes. I'm going to fight for it, but it's not something I'm going to obsess over," Sierra says. You can follow Arlenis on Instagram @arlenissierracanadilla
