Sarah Storey Making Waves With Horizon Fitness

Sarah Storey begins her 2010 season part of the new UK based Horizon Fitness Racing Team under the watchful eye of Team Manager Stefan Wyman.

Sarah has improved steadily over recent years and although being part of Britain’s Paralympic squad, also holds national titles with able-bodied athletes. We caught up with the talented Horizon Fitness rider fresh from her victory in round two of the UK Rudy Project National Time Trial Series.

You were originally a talented swimmer, how did the crossover into cycling occur?
I came home from Athens and had my usual post Paralympic break from training, but when I restarted in the pool in early 2005, I came down with a series of chronic ear infections which meant I was banned from swim training for up to 3 months at a time. As a full time athletes I had to keep fit, so decided to ride a bike as running would have been too high impact over the length of time I was looking at. After my 6th infection in 6 months I was out of the pool indefinitely when British Cycling offered me a trial. Part of my bike keep fit regime had included public sessions at the velodrome, but even then I surprised everyone by doing a 4.05 over 3km and keeping up with the guys at a Criterium. As a result I was selected for the  Europeans in August 2005 where I won the 3km Individual Pursuit in a new world record at the time of 4.01.178 and the also won the Road Race whilst riding on a cross bike, which was the only thing with 2 wheels I had at the time!

Your husband Barney Storey is also a world record holder as a sprint pilot, how influencial has he been on your success to date and do you train together?
Barney was the major driving force in my fast track into cycling after those first Europeans. Although we met while I was still a swimmer [on a training camp in April 2004 in fact] he was not the reason for my switch of sports. Once we both realised I had a talent for cycling, he became the driving force in getting me to know everything I could as quickly as possible. Before that first Europeans, we sat watching the Tour de France and he explained tactics and what I might be able to use based on his previous experience of the women I would be racing a few weeks later. I suppose you could say he is my second coach and he works closely with my fitness coach Gary Brickley and also with Jamie Pringle who works with us on the power data, positional stuff and other areas of sports science. We all take a very methodical and innovative approach and Barney has a real eye for technique, so can report back for me. Barney’s attention to detail is also second to none and he is brilliant at helping me evolve my position along with the guidance from Jamie and Gary, so with these three on my side I feel very fortunate.

Barney and I don’t go out on the road as often as we used to as we live in a hilly part of Cheshire, England, so the difference in our power to weight ratio’s make us pretty inefficient training partners. Having said that, Barney is at every race, recce’s every course with me and gets in the car behind a race as often as possible. Although he is my husband has a harsh eye and will always tell me how it is, which balanced with the fact he only wants the best result for me, means I have complete faith in his judgement. His whole family are into cycling and with his brother in the business too, I think we are quite a formidable team.

2010 sees you with Horizon Fitness Racing Team, a new and professionaly run outfit under the experienced Stefan Wyman. How are you settling into the team and how does it differ form other teams you have been involved with over the years?
Working with Horizon and Stef Wyman and the girls is brilliant. I came from one of the best club teams in the UK, VC ST RAPHAEL, and one of the things I love about that club is the friendship and enjoyment that works so well with the drive for competitive success. So to be able to come into a women’s team that has the same feel and sense of belonging as well as the extra racing opportunities, makes me feel very much at home and as though we can achieve anything because we work together as a team. I was always a big team player with the relays in the swimming pool, but since my switch to cycling everything has become solely about me achieving as an individual. So now working with Horizon I get the team work element back whilst still improving as an individual, so that is vital, a perfect situation and very important to me to have both. Having like-minded and ambitious people around me all the time is a real privilege and as an older athlete who has always been passionate about the upcoming talent, I am delighted to be working alongside some of the UK’s best young female riders.

Stef and the team sponsors are incredibly supportive and we also have the support of some high quality brands, which in our first year bodes well for the future. Also, as a Paralympian forging a previously untrodden path by other women in paracycling, it is also humbling for me to be taken on for my athletic strengths and to be working with people who want to help me reach my potential as a cyclist, whether that be as a paracyclist, as a pro, as an Olympian or as all three.

Will riding for Horizon Fitness Racing Team allow you to ride events that were previously unable to compete in and bring your racing up to a new level?
Part of the plan in moving to Horizon was to be able to access new opportunities with my racing as we recognised at VC St Raphael that we had developed me as far as possible within the realms of a club team based solely in the UK. As you said, Stef has a great deal of experience and is well known throughout the women’s road fraternity, so he has been able to open doors with race places for Horizon as a team and also for individuals on guest spots with other teams. My first taste of pro level racing came on Easter Monday at Dottignies and whilst it was scary at times, it has certainly opened my eyes to the areas in which I need to improve and this gives me even greater motivation every day in training. I am hoping that in raising the bar in this way on the road, I will have a greater strength to take back to my track racing and also a wider knowledge of road racing for the Paralympic Road Race in London.

What are your goals for the season and long term?
My goals for 2010 are initially revolving around defending the 4 World titles I won at Paracycling Worlds last year. The Paracycling Road Worlds take place in August in Canada and I have both the Road Time Trial and Road Race titles to defend there. Paracycling Track Worlds were cancelled earlier this year, so it’s very disappointing they haven’t been rescheduled yet. I have both the 500m TT and 3km IP titles to defend on the track though so I really hope they are rescheduled soon.

Away from the Paracycling goals, I also have goals to try and learn as much as possible from the women’s road racing I do with Horizon and to try some new tactics whilst helping the team to success at some stage races and nationally too. Another big goal is to try and get selected for the GB women’s team pursuit – as I am currently the second fastest female pursuiter over 3km in the country and I would very much like to be a part of driving the Team Pursuit World Record down towards a 3.15. In Road TT-ing I would love to win a National title, over either the 10 miles, 25 miles or at the circuit championships in September, so I will be continuing to work on that side of my riding too.

You also spend time as an ‘Inspirational speaker’ can you tell us more as to what this entails?
Inspirational Speakers is a speaker agency run by the company that manage a lot of my PR. Since my first Games in 1992, I have been a public speaker trying to motivate everyone from school age young people to business bosses. My role is to give them the inspiration to follow their own dreams and work hard to achieve the goals they have in life. My dream to be a Gold Medallist for Great Britain started when, as a six year old, I first remembering watching the Olympics. It was 1984 and the Games were in LA and it was at that point I realised I wanted to be an athlete. So I share my story and use it as a base for encouraging others to believe in themselves and follow their ambitions regardless of how crazy it might seem to other people.

The GB team has gained major success on the track recently, do you receive any funding from the team, if so, how has this helped you?
All the Olympic and Paralympic sports receive a certain amount of funding for the athletes that have the potential to compete at the Games. Cycling is slightly unique in that some of the potential Olympians, mainly the male pro’s, are funded sufficiently by their pro teams, but the rest of us rely on the Lottery grants provided to athlete’s as a contribution to living and sporting costs.

Cycling’s success in Beijing, meant that we have kept more places on our programme than some of the less successful sports, but that hasn’t made it any easier to be selected for that funding! In Paracycling, to receive the top level of funding, you have to achieve a Gold Medal at the World Championships/Paralympics and if you don’t compete because of injury then you have to break the world record at some other time in the year. It’s quite a tough selection to live up to year after year!

The funding is vital for myself and Barney as it is the biggest portion of our income.

The women’s side of the sport has really grown in popularity the last couple of seasons which is great to see. What do you put the success down to?
Women’s cycling has gained a bigger and bigger proportion of medals for every Olympics since women’s events were first introduced into the cycling programme at the Games, so I think as the opportunities have grown so has the number of women wanting to have the opportunity to win those medals. Within the UK we have programmes targeting everything from a ride to work scheme, to women’s specific races, so coupled with the success of GB’s female cyclists, it has all meant that people have more interest in cycling.

Based on the entries into this year’s Women’s Team Series, i think we are nearing the point where we need to seperate the women’s licence groups for racing like they do with the men. So E,1,2 and 2,3,4 which will mean the entries are all accepted and people don’t lose interest because every race they enter is oversubscribed.

What does being part of Bike Pure mean to you?
Bike Pure is such a very important part of cycling that it’s quite hard to put into words. As a bike pure rider I think one of the greatest assets we have is showing that success, great results, consistently fast times and utter enjoyment of cycling can be achieved through hard work, dedication, determination and most importantly without having to take performance enhancing, potentially life threatening drugs.

Are the anti-doping controls and out of competition testing as stringent with the Paralympic athletes?
The anti-doping controls in Paralympic sport have drastically changed over the time I have been an athlete and I certainly hope they are now on a par with everyone else. Back in 1992 in Barcelona, I won 2 gold medals and broke 2 world records, but was never tested until 2 years later on! These days though I see the drugs testers on a regular basis and have had both out of competition tests and out of hours tests during the recent winter training months. At one point last year I was tested twice in a 12 hour period and there is never a victory ceremony done without a post race drugs test too, which is very reassuring.

Which current crop of riders inspire you and have any helped you in your success to date?
I think we are lucky in cycling to have such a variety of disciplines that are so technically different and with the array of road races as well, from the classics to the major tours, like any other cycling fanatic I get lost in the coverage and immerse myself in the struggles and successes of anyone who is pedalling at the highest level.

I guess my highlights are something like this; As a time triallist I can’t help but admire the talents of Fabian Cancellara and his pure genius on the road and I am sure I’m not alone in that sentiment. The slick, professional and dominent execution of the Columbia HTC lead out train for Cav is something that is hard to tire of watching as they endeavour to position themselves regardless of the distance they have just covered. Being a multi-eventer myself it’s amazing to watch Marianne Vos as she switches from Cyclo-Cross to Road and to track. And as a rider who likes to try and escape from a peleton, I am always inspired by Jens Voigt. When I do come into the track, I am always inspired by the Individal Pursuiters, and love watching the split screen on the TV for that split second when you wonder which rider will come into shot first. It’s such a shame that is no longer an Olympic event.

In terms of direct help, that has all come from Barney and since we never have a no talking shop rule, we can just babble on for hours about ways to get us both to go faster.

You recently rode your first major road classic in Belgium, how was your ‘Classics’ debut and how did racing there differ from your usual races?
I suppose you could say I don’t normally do Road Races, so haven’t ever settled into one type of racing. In Paracycling the Road Races are more like Crits, never more than 60km in length and the stage races are quite short too. Prior to Dottignies I had only ever ridden one other race above 100km and that was the National Road Race last summer, when I came 16th. My other races you could count on one hand, 3 times at the Cheshire Classic which is an 80km race, three times at Crit Nationals, 3 times at the Paracycling Tour of Bilbao and then a Paracycling Championships in 2005, 2006 and 2009. So from that respect it was a big jump. My previous biggest field was about 50 or 60 riders, so to be surrounded by 154 at the start was terrifying!

The other biggest difference was the road surface and i’d never previously raced over cobbles. Fortunately Barney and I rode the course the day before and he came up with the genius plan of using a pedal strap to keep my left hand on the bars over all the bumps and potholes. It worked perfectly, but my left arm was pretty sore and crampy afterwards as I didn’t move it for the entire race! I didn’t know what to expect, but finished with the main bunch which went down to a bunch sprint, so the fact I kept up was a good start.

As Horizon Fitness Racing Team is primarily road based, will you still be racing and training on the track this season, maybe riding some World Cups?
My approach to the track altered last year in that I won’t be doing much track work outside of the build up to major events, so similar to the approach taken by some of the other roadies. I’ll work on gaining all my strength and fitness on the road and then transfer that in a short block of track work prior to racing a track event. My first track race in 2010 is scheduled to be track Nationals in September.

I’d love to ride a World Cup, but the GB team have told me selection for a World Cup for an over 23 female rider in the individual pursuit is a 3.30. So hopefully I will achieve this before the next World Cup series starts in December. I would also like to do some team pursuiting as I think my strength and power could be a valuable asset. My lab test partway through the winter training threw up a 6.2 watts per kilo score for the endurance test, so with some additional work on position I am sure I can achieve both the 3.30 and also some useful figures for the team pursuit squad.

Many thanks to Sarah for the interview. You can follow her on Twitter and catch up with all her latest developments on the Horizon Fitness Racing Team’s website.