British Paralympian talks of transition, dedication

• Source: Global Times
• [22:52 July 09 2009]
• Comments

British athlete Sarah Storey

By Wang Wei

During her visit to China as one of eight celebrity British innovators at the top of their fields, Sarah Storey (SS), one of Great Britain’s most decorated female Paralympians, spoke to the Global Times (GT) about her successful transition between swimming and track cycling and the reasons behind her outstanding achievement in both fields. She also expressed her ideas on the future of the Chinese cycling event and offered her best wishes to young Chinese athletes.

GT: When did you start your training as a swimmer?

SS: I started swim training when I was 10 years old. I first competed for Great Britain when I was 14 and I continued to compete until 2005. My last swimming competition was in America, in July 2005.

GT: You became internationally famous at the 1992 Barcelona Paralympic Games [wining two gold medals] and since then have grabbed 27 gold medals at international level before being forced to give up swimming in 2005 due to constant ear infections. Why did you choose to take up cycling?

SS: I chose cycling as a cross-training event to make sure that I was still fit when I couldn’t swim. As a full-time athlete, I had to remain fit and healthy, so cycling was an obvious choice. The only danger is if you crash. For me, it was a safer option than running, in which you can develop leg or ankle problems. Your joints are very flexible as a swimmer, so the more flexible the joint, the more risky it is to be a runner. So cycling was the sport that I can do in the gym without risking my resume training.

But when I ended up with my fifth and sixth ear infections – they were so bad, the doctor said that I had to stop swimming for maybe three months, maybe until next year, maybe forever! To be told you can never swim again was a strange thing, so I relished the opportunity to compete on the bike as a way of feeling better about missing the racing, missing the competition.

It was an accident, it just happened. I was told that I had to make a choice. You can’t be two athletes, it’s physically impossible to train – so I had to choose which one I would like to commit to training for Beijing.