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| On track: Sarah Storey competing in the women's individual pursuit at the Beijing Paralympics |
This is a massive year for any British athlete with Olympic or Paralympic
aspirations – or both – and for me the journey really gathered pace in the
glitzy surroundings of the baggage carousel at Manchester Airport.
It was just before Christmas last year, and I had just arrived back with the
Great Britain women’s team pursuit cycling squad from a World Cup meeting in
California. We were waiting to pick up our stuff when I was told that I was
being cut from the Olympic squad . I suppose there is never an ideal time
for these things.
It was disappointing but not devastating: I could have been worthy of a place
in almost any other team but not a truly astonishing Great Britain team. The
truth is I didn’t just want to be a participant at the Olympics, I wanted to
win a big medal. I got over it very quickly.
My original aim was to challenge for gold medals in five events at London
2012, the team pursuit and my four Paralympic events – two on the track and
two on the road.
That was always the 'big picture’ even if it was my attempt to earn an Olympic
spot that attracted the media’s attention.
The next morning after getting back from California my husband Barney and I
switched focus. We changed flights and booked in for a block of road work in
Lanzarote.
I am still doing a lot of stuff on the road: in fact I’m off to South Africa
for the first time this week to race with my road team, Escentual For
Viored. With the Paralympics not starting until the end of August it still
feels early in the season to me and a time to put in more groundwork.
It is a frantic year and one in which I am very lucky having Barney in my corner. He is a wonder and almost entirely responsible for me being the bike rider that I have become.
We first met at the Athens Paralympics in 2004 when the GB cyclists had the apartment above us swimmers in the village.
After the Games another couple of friends had encouraged me to take up cycling and I started to bump into him fairly regularly when I went down to the Manchester Velodrome, where I quickly got the track cycling bug. Eventually he plucked up the courage to ask me out and we got together.
Barney was a top-class road racer before turning to the track where he now rides as pilot for some of our top men in the Paralympic squad.
In that role he won two Paralympic golds at Beijing – tandems are the only events in the Paralympic Games where an able-bodied athlete can also win a medal because they directly affect the outcome of the race – and has won four world titles. He understands every element of the sport and he helps me in every conceivable way.
He does the mechanics, sets the bike up correctly and helps organise my training programme and race schedule. Despite his own busy programme he will come away on as many trips and races with me as possible.
With Barney it is so much more than husbandly encouragement and support; it is also really expert advice and the voice of experience.
Hopefully in return I am not high maintenance and an overly demanding wife and we try to be relaxed but businesslike in our approach to the sport. Neither of us likes making dramas out of anything or stressing about things.
We are investing a huge amount of emotion to start with just being together as a couple and deciding to compete at an elite level of cycling. You don’t need any more emotion on top of that.
What we do need is just to get on with the job and enjoy the wonderful sporting life we have together.
Unlike some couples, we don’t have any nights when talking shop is banned – well, maybe the odd meal out. Cycling will never be 'shop’ for us. It’s our life and the one we choose to lead. We don’t have to 'escape’ anything for a night because we are totally in love with what we do.
Barney is a natural coach and as a coach he has always been fascinated by a very straightforward challenge: can I help make this former swimmer into a world-class cyclist? And, of course, it is the same quest that drives me on.
It is a frantic year and one in which I am very lucky having Barney in my corner. He is a wonder and almost entirely responsible for me being the bike rider that I have become.
We first met at the Athens Paralympics in 2004 when the GB cyclists had the apartment above us swimmers in the village.
After the Games another couple of friends had encouraged me to take up cycling and I started to bump into him fairly regularly when I went down to the Manchester Velodrome, where I quickly got the track cycling bug. Eventually he plucked up the courage to ask me out and we got together.
Barney was a top-class road racer before turning to the track where he now rides as pilot for some of our top men in the Paralympic squad.
In that role he won two Paralympic golds at Beijing – tandems are the only events in the Paralympic Games where an able-bodied athlete can also win a medal because they directly affect the outcome of the race – and has won four world titles. He understands every element of the sport and he helps me in every conceivable way.
He does the mechanics, sets the bike up correctly and helps organise my training programme and race schedule. Despite his own busy programme he will come away on as many trips and races with me as possible.
With Barney it is so much more than husbandly encouragement and support; it is also really expert advice and the voice of experience.
Hopefully in return I am not high maintenance and an overly demanding wife and we try to be relaxed but businesslike in our approach to the sport. Neither of us likes making dramas out of anything or stressing about things.
We are investing a huge amount of emotion to start with just being together as a couple and deciding to compete at an elite level of cycling. You don’t need any more emotion on top of that.
What we do need is just to get on with the job and enjoy the wonderful sporting life we have together.
Unlike some couples, we don’t have any nights when talking shop is banned – well, maybe the odd meal out. Cycling will never be 'shop’ for us. It’s our life and the one we choose to lead. We don’t have to 'escape’ anything for a night because we are totally in love with what we do.
Barney is a natural coach and as a coach he has always been fascinated by a very straightforward challenge: can I help make this former swimmer into a world-class cyclist? And, of course, it is the same quest that drives me on.
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