Test Match Special - View from the Boundary: Dame Sarah Storey

Episode Date: July 26, 2025

Dame Sarah Storey tells Jonathan Agnew about her love of cricket and how she's continued to dominate Paralympic sport over the last three decades.

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you're getting a fair exchange rate with no extra markups. Be smart. Join the 15 million customers who choose Wise. Download the Wise app today or visit Wise.com. T's and C's and C's Apply. podcast on BBC Sounds What is time for our view from the boundary I've floated one or two little hints out there as to who we have as our

guest today and we're joined by one of the country's most celebrated athletes and I think Sarah Story is going after glory now she's put a dig in she's put an attack in she's left Crystal late right behind and Dame Sarah Story

is on another level without equal a trendsetter a record breaker. And without doubt now, Britain's greatest ever Paralympian. There we go. Without doubt, she's collected remarkable 19 gold medals, eight silver, three bronze across nine Paralympic games, and in two different sports, swimming and cycling, and also the first person to win five gold medals before the age of 19. A passionate Lancasterian, she grew up coming to Old Trafford to watch Lancashire, citing the grit and determination at the side as an inspiration which is now president of Lancashire here at Old Trafford

and it's great to see Dame Sarah's story again because we have met haven't me Sarah you reminded me yeah embarrassingly and was it it wasn't the crucible in Sheffler was the theatre wasn't it was a theatre we're doing question of sport and toughers thankfully we went doing ballet or something no we were on the same side as toughers and I think we're well I was terrible I don't think I got a single thing right I don't know I can't remember toughers always says oh you do well I want you on my team and I think maybe I let him down that night. Well, never mind.

I don't think we won. But a good party afterwards. It was great. It was great. Hey, so welcome to this. I mean, look at you. You're just, this is, you're looking over your kingdom at the moment,

president of Lancashire. Welcome to my home. Yes, I know. But, you know, for a traditional old club, that's a great role to have, isn't it? Oh, it's fantastic. And, you know, I'm first female president here. So hopefully I am the, I've opened the door for many more girls to walk through in the future.

but when they asked me at the early part of last year whether it was something I could consider our past president was in incredibly bad health and sadly passed away a few months later but he'd been a huge shoes to fill you know you look at the ground and the transformation to the business and the hotels and everything that comes with this

as well as the success of the team that we've got here so it was a little bit of a pinch of a moment I took a moment to take my breath but it's an opportunity to I've always loved cricket my cricketing family, so it seemed like the right thing to step into and try and make a difference to the next phase of the club. Do you feel the tradition? I mean, it has changed, hasn't it, since, well, I came here as a kid and you too, obviously. I mean, it has been transformed as a cricket ground, but do you still feel that tradition of the place? I mean, Surrey, I'll offend people here, it doesn't matter, but I mean, Surrey, Lancashire, Yorkshire, they're sort of seen as the three bastions of the game.

going right back, aren't they? Absolutely, and I think that's one of the exciting parts. You've got that history. You've got everything that sort of embodies, but you've also got this bright future of the way that cricket is evolving and changing. We have our very first all professional female team this year. And that's just so important to continue to build

on that incredible history and to take it forward for the next 160 years. Yeah. So your early memories are coming here then, Sarah. I mean, it was completely different, wasn't it? I mean, the pitch was the other way round, as the pavilion was still there, but not quite as tall as it is now. It just felt completely different, too, didn't it? Yeah, very different, not just like you say with the pitch, but also the players would come through to the dressing rooms after their innings.

So you'd see slightly closer up, perhaps, that sense of annoyance if there would been a mistake. That's one word for it, I suppose, yeah. So, yeah, no, very, very different. but I think this is where all the great sort of stadiums as they grow, and you look at the number of people that can come today, especially when it's a full house, and then the fun of the hotel balconies and the people who are stood out watching from the point there.

I think it brings that sense of theatre, and obviously great cricket in the centre still. Yeah, I remember when the point first went up, I thought, oh, I'm not sure about this. I mean, that vast red building there with all the glass. in front and it was because it was there by itself wasn't it and the pavilion hadn't been done it hadn't been extended upwards and there was nothing else thought oh what are you doing what's going on here but actually now you see the finished article uh and these two hotels and those balconies

are fun aren't they I mean with our equatorial guinea and flag I still haven't worked out what they're doing up there alongside the Greeks but people with their flags are sitting out and enjoying her I mean it's just a different way of enjoying enjoying the cricket it certainly is and I think you're right. Now you see the finished article. It looks amazing. And it brings so many different people here. And one of the fun things in the wintertime

when the team are here training or we're doing something is when you have conferences and events and people are introduced to cricket. And then they're curious and come back and think, well, wonder what this is like as a sports stadium. And so, you know, you meet people and some people are the diehard cricketing fans. They've grown up playing cricket since as soon as they stood up.

And then the new people who come in and see it from their perspective too so i think that's a beauty of cricket you have it right from the the small cricket clubs and villages right the way through to this big stadia and everyone can play from the tiny tots who are doing their all-stars cricket um certainly at our club we've got uh all ages playing and we've all you know right up to the mum's team that i play with you are playing yeah well just softball ladies pairs excellent right how's it going i did my best bowling figures the other day I mean I say best I'm sort of walking with a couple of steps I'm not running in so does Dajja he comes up a couple of steps yep couple of steps but yeah I was

opening the bowling I'd kind of been promoted right what what you're actually doing with the I was trying to spin it right but yeah but just very first few weeks I should say yeah it's infancy but I didn't get that opportunity as a child you know in the 80s when my brother was playing cricket as an under 11 and then as an under 13 under 15 I was down at the club and sort of getting involved in training but girls didn't play with the boys it was very different environment so i got involved by scoring and being helpful and you know making the teas he always jokes that was just some bathing on the boundary really wasn't it sounds terribly old-fashioned though isn't it

back in that time because that is how it how it was i guess absolutely was but it didn't you know the sport side of it i've always been really interested in the sport whichever sport i'm watching i'm watching the you know the athleticism of the the players or of the the the the sports people on the field or on the track or in the pool or you know whichever sport it happens to be and sport just drew me in from being very young and I watched my first Olympics as a six-year-old and that's what made me want to represent my country now the sport really didn't matter at that point and although I'm known as an international swimmer and cyclist I think for me I've always loved lots of different sports and I was a county table tennis player and I won the championship I was on the

netball team for the county I ran English schools cross-country but my international sports swimming and cycling and of course cricket was something I loved doing but wasn't able to do competitively yeah did you want it wasn't quite frustrating was it did you want to do it I did want to I tried to talk my way onto the boys cricket team in year five I remember and um our teacher at the time went into some very uh he spent a long time explaining the um the equipment for the protective equipment I suppose you could say yes and you just doesn't matter for you you can go and then I was so bad you haven't got to wear one of those oh no no I don't need to wear one of those. So I just was like, yeah, I was very good. I had always had a good throw from the boundary. So I was like, well, you put her out in the deep, you know. But yeah, so it wasn't just one of those things. And I think my other sports were obviously there and I was very involved with. So they took over. So it's great now that we have so many ways to be involved. And at the club, you've got just as many, where men and women on the field at any one time as you have got supporting the club from, you know, behind the scenes. You're being coy about these bowling figures. What were they?

Well, four overs, no maidens, 12 for non. So they didn't hit me to... You didn't get a wicked? I didn't get a wicket, but I only got hit for 12 runs in four overs. I thought you were going to say four for naught or something? No, sadly not. What do you got? Well, there's some improvement.

There's plenty of opportunity for improvement. But no wides, which I think... Well, that's good. As any of the other women who are listening will know, in the moment, you know, not being called for a wide or a nobogue, especially when you're a novice, it's a success story. I'd agree. with that. Now my old president, when I played professional cricket, it was an old buffer who was there a long time, didn't know anybody's names, and used to sort of meet the committee once at the start of the summer, you know, and that was kind of our relationship with the president. But knowing you a bit, I suspect you're not that sort of president. I just got this feeling that you are, you know, you're right on it, aren't you? You're getting stuck into a role and maybe take it into a new direction, are you?

Well, one of the things that I was really keen to make sure was that the players knew who the president was. I mean, they all knew. Yeah. Sir Howard. Do you know their names? And I know all their names. Well, that's a advanced on ours. The tricky thing with cricket is I had to learn two because everyone has a nickname.

Oh. So I'd have to learn everyone's nickname and it's like, which one do I use? So in a board meeting, we're using their actual name and in a cricketing scenario, we're using a nickname. Yes. So having to know everybody's, now, not all nicknames are obvious. No, and some could be a bit, you know. Yeah. Yeah.

So I have to be really on it with that. So that was double the challenge, I suppose, but I'm always up for a challenge. So being present at training, being here in the winter, being on the preseason tour, making sure both the players and the coaching staff and the backroom staff, the physios, the people making the tea, the people in their kitchen, sort of clearing up after the team as well. You know, making sure everyone knew that I wanted to be here as a supportive role and someone who was visible. Yes. And what's your main drive? Because it's only a two-year role, isn't it? So, I mean, can you get a lot done in that time

if you aren't clearly trying to get involved as you are? Well, I think for the women's side, there's been such a trajectory, sort of really pushed on. And this is our first season as all professional. Obviously, the Tier 1 game of the counties having it instead of the regions. So it's happening at quite a quick pace.

So being here and being able to provide the perspective that has come from pro-cycling, women's pro-cycling has been on, similar parallel journey perhaps slightly ahead of that from an international perspective so that perspective has been really helpful but also being able to talk both to the academy as I did the other day and some of those players are in their teens and starting university my early days as a swimmer I was at the end of my year nine when I went to my first games so having that it doesn't feel

that many years ago now but being able to do both exams and practice for exams, what did they call it? Revision, timetables, those sorts of things, making sure that you had enough time for everything that you needed to do. How do you manage your own logistics and how are you organised and how does that help you when you become, you know, leave school, leave university? So that sort of perspective as well. And then also for the players that have come, some of them have given up jobs to be professional cricketers. And so that's a really important transition that they made, almost a risk that they took. So being able to help and support from a mentoring perspective there too. Yeah, so you kind of presence like motivator in a way. I mean, that's a

whole new direction, isn't it? I think so. And I think although it's only a couple of years, you can set a new tone of and help to kind of bring a culture in there of always being very analytical, being very driven, being able to take on that constructive support. And we talk about constructive criticism. It's not the right way of explaining it really. Just being able to take on that constructive advice that you get to help you become a better athlete and being really objective about what you want to do and how you can improve and how you can evolve as a player because you may come into the sport very much thinking that you're a bowler who's going to be at number 11 and turns out that you're actually incredibly good and you

can develop other skills that make you move up the order or you change and maybe you end up being much better at batting than you perhaps thought. So always having that open mind as an athlete. And the time and the opportunity to do it, that's the important thing too, isn't it? Which women's cricket now, there's a new structure now, isn't there? Where do you see, I mean, here at Lancashire, women's cricket and the growth of it and what you can do to develop it? And I don't know, you often hear about, well, it's not making money and that's kind of

often a negative thing put out there, isn't it? And you hear it in cricket, are you encountering that with women's sports? With women's sports, definitely, but here at Lancashire, they've very much been ahead of the curve. So when I arrived, it already had three or four years of paying players beyond what maybe other counties had done, making sure that they had the biggest squad they could afford, that were full-time, weren't on a paper play, weren't having to have another job if they didn't want to, were able to, they need a huge support from Hilton and sports breaks with that and the commercial partners around the club. And making sure that you're telling the stories about why that's important.

If you've got siblings who are twins, one's a girl and one's a boy, making sure both of them can have the same ambition, that the end goal of being an international player looks the same for both. And we are... That's such a good way of explaining it, isn't it? I mean, yeah, twin boy, twin girls should have the same opportunity. And that's such a simple way of putting it out there. And so often we have the same opportunity internationally,

but when we look at the pathways, they're quite different. It's about making sure that those pathways provide that. So in cricket, there's obviously a huge history around boys' cricket coming into, you know, Academy and Men's Cricket. So how do we make sure that our girls are getting that chance? And, you know, our school has got a really good history with cricket where my daughter and some both go. And they were playing another school.

And they were saying, well, our girls don't play outside of schools. So, you know, not go easy on them, but just so you know they might need some help with the rules, you know, under 13s. So we're saying, talking to them after saying, how do we make sure that you can help support your local clubs to adopt a women's section, adopt a girls section to help develop it there? So there's lots of things that there are still, you know, ways of which we can help make sure that those opportunities exist in a more local level. But right up here, we have been having that opportunity for the girls for a number of years. And pre-season tour, this year was really, really well done. the men were in India, the women arrived in Dubai as the men arrived in Dubai.

We had a weekend, a long weekend, all of them together. Oh, that's amazing. And then the girls went on to India for their competitive part. And I went to India with the girls. And it was really well constructed because it gave the competitive side of the preseason that was needed. But it also gave that collaborative opportunity in Dubai in a place where we could do friendly games, where we could do some training, where we could have that, you know, heat training element. as well, which is important from an athletic perspective.

Physiological, you know, the physiology of sport is also very important in cricket. The stamina you need, as we're seeing, in the very, you know, the very middle of a test match, five days long stamina. So how do we, you know, construct the opportunities at a county level and a club level that helps give those extra experiences? And so we've been doing that here for the women for a number of years. Yeah, and the fact they are going on tour to Dubai and to India. I mean, that shows just how it is progressing, isn't it?

I mean, in quite a short time, it's a great opportunity. Yeah, it's huge opportunity and it has progressed quickly, but it's now almost become, you know, it hasn't been that long, but it also feels like it's been done for a long time because it's so well, you know, executed and the support from the backroom staff and the exec at the club as well as the playing staff, the players, the staff, and the players, the backroom staff in this side of the ground,

where we are because obviously the players changing rooms and facilities are beneath us here in this building and then we've just got the indoor centre

just across so all of that means that we take the pressure off being here in the winter which I know from when I'm swimming and as a cyclist too we're all trying to escape

to better weather in that worst time of the year because it just gives you that additional ability to be disciplined and motivation is one thing but motivation comes from that discipline

of being able to get up and just keep putting in the hours and keep working on the things that you need to work on both your strengths and your weaknesses. Yeah, I'm going to talk about that in a second because I'd never understand how you all get up at that time in the morning. But just the last one, what do you say to sort of administrators and sporting bodies to say, well, we've been sports all well and good, but actually, you know, it doesn't bring any money in. So, you know, we're just good to keep plowing on with the men's. And I mean, what do you say when you hear that argument? Because it's out there, isn't it? Well, it can be. And I think it's really naive because it'll never, if you

you don't start somewhere. And I think Deloitte's report into women's sport have demonstrated the growth in that, you know, growth in sport globally has been huge. But the women's share that is gradually creeping up, perhaps not quickly enough. And it sometimes feels until you zoom out that we're not making enough headway.

But we are, you know, we are in a very different space to where we were 25 years ago. And if I think about the opportunities in women's sport when I started, it was very different in some sports. You know, Olympic and Paralympic sport has also grown, but trying to just get that share of the coverage for the women's side of any sport. Tennis have done it incredibly well, and it works when it's done properly, done well, done professionally. And that's the challenge back, isn't it? You know, speculate to accumulate, and you'll have that success.

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So, winning gold medals at 14. I mean, that's ridiculous. The dream comes true. I mean, how did it feel at 14 to be winning a gold medal? You were kind of aware of the whole sort of bigger picture of it? I think it, I don't think I was fully aware of the bigger picture. but it made me want to set a goal of being able to do this for as long as possible. Like it was very much a pipe dream.

I never anticipated nine games would be possible. I thought I might be pushing my luck with eight games, but yeah, why not try and go for as long as possible? And when I finished the games in Atlanta, I was 18. I went to university and I thought, well, maybe five gold medals, that's the same as Steve ended up with. Steve Redgrave, maybe I should just stop. And I did try and do the whole freshest first.

first term and see how that worked out. But I really missed the discipline and the training and, you know, even the getting up in a morning. And that routine was just something. And I knew I hadn't become the best athlete I could be. And I was always really taken by the idea of finding out what my own, you know, own ceiling was. How far can I take this as an athlete? When did you realize that someone with a disability could compete at that sort of level? As a child growing up, did you think, well, actually, you see the Olympics on the telly or something, think, well, I'm not going to be able to do that. But when did you realize that actually there was a future for you? Well, I didn't really, it didn't really sort of register with me that I wouldn't be able to do it.

I never really had, never was treated any differently. I just went and learned to swim. I was the fastest swim in my school in year four. So the year fives and sixes are a bit disgruntled. I bet they were. And that was just me competing with everybody. There was no kind of separation out there. And it wasn't until, I think it was in 1990,

I saw a news article about a young girl who was aiming for the games in Barcelona. And she had an upper limb sort of growth abnormality like me. And I was like, oh, I wonder, you know, whether there's something I could do. So I found out about the British Paralympic Association and the process of getting into the Paraswim team. And I went to a training weekend.

And they moved me from the slowest lane to the fastest lane. And I was leading the fastest lane. And all the boys were like, who is this girl? Who is? And I was only just 14 at that point. And I was just so determined. I wanted to get myself a British track suit and represent my country. And to me at that point, I didn't really mind which sport.

Swimming was the sport. I loved a lot because my hero growing up with Sarah Hardcastle. And Sarah won silver and bronze as a 15-year-old in 1984. So Sarah was my ultimate hero. I just wanted to try and go one. one better. So getting to the games in 92 happened very fast because in September 1991 I was nowhere and then in September 1992 I had two gold models two were records three silvers and a bronze and it was kind of like so it was a very

fast transition. Hours of work hours of training I mean I'll be honest I'm not a not a happy trainer Sarah I don't know I found bowling in the net's a bit tedious but swimming length after length after length looking at the same concrete floor on a black line or something I mean what do you think about what's going through your head well when I was at school I used to recite things like

French verbs German verbs I used to do my homework in my head really I just used to relish this kind of in a almost sadistic way this like cusp of pain like working really hard I knew it was do me good if it hurt a little bit Therefore, when I got to competition, I'd hopefully be unbeatable. I don't know, I just had this, I just loved, and I still do, like I'm very good at training by myself.

I'm very good at being on my own, in the pool, on my bike, even though cycling is much more sociable than swimming, in a sense, you can go out in a group and you can have a chat with your friends, a bit like if you go out for a drive and you sat next to you, you know, companion having a chat, you can do that on a bike too. So I choose to train by myself. I always have done. Just get the most out of myself that way. And I've always loved being able to challenge myself. And I think my parents taught me very early on, you know, look at what you're doing, try and beat Sarah. Don't worry about everybody else because you can't control what they're doing.

Just always try and beat Sarah. So beating myself became this kind of obsession. If I can't beat myself today, that's kind of the goal of each day. Can I do? And I've got better at that. I don't, you know, I'm not going to be training today. so I don't have to worry about beating myself from yesterday. But I do like to see how fast I can cycle home on my Brompton after work.

You're not one of those loonies on the bike who goes cutting through the red lights. Oh, no, no, I stand there and if anyone says, why aren't you moving? I'll say, well, I'm not, you know, stay with me. Like, yeah, so, you know, it's just that challenge of sport, I guess, and I just always love challenging myself. And I'm fortunate that I got to do that and challenge people in the rest of the world too. Yeah. But was it an easy progression then?

you are going, scooting up and down, to get actually national selection. Is that an easy thing back then to have done? No, so I had to write the regional coordinator for the regional squad. And the regional squad used to take you to national championships. Right. And then from there, the selections were made for international. So the regional coordinator was only accessible via snail mail. You know, you had to write to her and tell what you were doing.

Send a letter. So I sent a letter every time I did a personal best time for 8. months and then she replied kidding no so i didn't get a reply for 18 months no oh craggy and it wasn't like they suddenly all appeared at the same time she replied once with a very short letter and i kind of wish we'd kept it because it would have just said something like there's a competition at this pool on this day and that's where you need to be and it was really casual have you subsequently met this person i do you actually realize what you've become no well i think when she was a she was a volunteer coordinator sport was it was quite fun

wouldn't it so different yeah well I didn't meet her on this competition and she said oh yes you're quite good and then somebody in who was on the pool side her she she knew the person who did the national squad so she said what I'm going to do is I'm going to ring the national squad coach now and give her your details and but everything was done sort of snail mail landline phone calls discussions there was no internet there was no email there was none of that kind of digital access, certainly no text messages. So then a few weeks later, I went for a trial with the National Squad, and that was the weekend where I started in lane six in the slowest lane

and ended up leading the fast lane. And they trialled me over a couple of different distances. And then they said to my dad, who'd gone down with me, he said, well, we're not sure where house selection will go. Sarah's now on the long list. But the training camp is in May half term, and we need you to pay for her to go now. And my dad's like, okay, well, I don't know.

any of you so can we come with you well yeah of course you can but you need to pay for yourselves now too so he's on the phone to my mum going oh hi mary we've got to do this we'll take the whole family and we've got to pay now and i've just met these people yesterday so um it was a leap of faith that is a shot in the dark isn't it absolutely yeah and so we we did that we went to my very first international training camp because we'd never trained outdoors in a 50 meter pool either because we didn't have any 50-meter pools. For those people who were around in the 80s and 90s, the campaign to get 50-meter pools in the UK was big.

We didn't have an Olympic-sized pool, so we had to go abroad to train an Olympic pool, and that's what we did, and then May half-term. So it was quite some undertaking, and the pool we came from in Stockport, where I trained, was a 30-yard Victorian pool, which subsequently was knocked down, and it's now, sadly, just a car park,

but it was, you know, Anyone listening who trained in Stockport at that time, St. Peter's Gate kind of holds a special place in our heart. So just give me a clue. These 25 metre pools then. How many of those are you swimming at a training session? How many lengths? So 25 metre pool being short course. I guess you would be swimming anything from sort of seven to nine kilometres. So I'm not sure how many lengths that isn't. We've got quick at maths. We need a man with quick maths. But that's a lot. It's a lot. Well, you'd break it down. So you'd do set. So you'd maybe the warm up would be a 400. freestyle, 300 medley, 200 kick, 100 building, or something like that.

And then you'd do sets of maybe 20, 30, 100s. You'd have a specific pace you were trying to hit. Then you might do some longer kick set where you were doing maybe 800 kick. You might do, we do sort of, we call them Russian steps in swimming. I don't know if you're in cycling, maybe we did in swimming. We do a 400 freestyle, a 100, two kicks to one pull in breaststroke, a 300 freestyle, A 200, 203. So we'd do stuff that kept your mind occupied as well.

Yes. There was always a pattern to it. And our coaches at Stockport, Alistair and Dave, they were both really good at creating interesting sessions, I thought. And I've subsequently found some of my old logbooks. And some of the sessions are really quite thought-provoking because you had to remember them. 280 lengths.

Ah, there we go. 25 metres. That's ridiculous. And how many times are you doing that a week? 9 or 10. What? So an average week would probably be around 50,000 metres a week. And then a longer week would be 70 to 80,000.

But yeah, I mean... But that's what you've got to do to win a gold medal. And what I'd love to find out for you with, what does it feel like? What does it feel like to win a gold medal? I mean, I've commentated on two in the Rio Olympics in the Westernism. And I've got to say, it's the most, I think a most emotional I've ever been in sport. because yeah, cricket's my sport and it's a team game

and, you know, in winning the ashes and so on it is great and it's my sport but to see an individual Brit win a gold medal and then be on the podium and the national anthem and the union flag and all of that stuff you know I got

I was on the question of so I had Nick Skelton go and see big star if you see the film is fantastic sort of the other day and I sat there very smugly in Melton Mowbray cinema mainly female audience if I'm honest

I thought that with my wife very smugly it's a great film about winning surprisingly the gold at that Rio Olympics very smugly because I was the one commentating on it at the time and no one knew

now sitting in that cinema I know so I was quite pleased about that and of course Charlottes you shut down one gold in the dress-off so but to be there and to commentate on a gold medal and then the podium afterwards

I will never ever forget how I felt that day so what it must be like to be that person and I think the emotions of being the person that wins versus the emotion and the pride of the person watching and feeling and you know feeling that sense of pride on behalf of someone is quite different the initial feeling is immense relief and excitement at the same time so when I crossed the finish line in Paris I'd won by half a bike length and I'd beaten the 19 year old home favorite so that was a different like just that's very different feeling to crossing the finish line and having a bit of notice in Tokyo and across the finish line, there was nobody there.

And as I finished, both on the road race and in the track, when you go past an empty stand, that was really bizarre. I'd prepared to compete in an empty room, if need be. I'd never prepared to celebrate in an empty room. And that was really quite, that was the most emotional time because you couldn't see anybody behind the cameras watching from home. There are millions of people back home watching, but you can't see their eyes. And when you, the excitement, the immense relief and the immense pride that all of those jigsaw puzzle pieces have fallen into the right place at the right time.

Because nobody sees the hurdles that you've come through, the challenges, the illness, the injury. All that training. All the stuff. All of that. All of the blood, sweat and tears behind the scenes people don't see. But you carry that with you and you don't really think about it until afterwards. And all of the things that you've decided to do, all the choices you've made where you've had a crossroads or a. a fork in the road.

Some athletes talk about sacrificing things. I always think you choose because if you've sacrificed something, then maybe you could have had a better offer. I always think you've made that choice. So all of those choices, you've made them, and they were the right choice. It's kind of like it cements that decision you made. And it's just the most overwhelming, exciting feeling.

And I guess the only thing that ever comes close is the feeling of seeing your baby born, like literally that immense like wow I've done it you know I created this medal I created this opportunity and because it's such sacred ground it's once every four years it's the thing everybody wants and you have it it's amazing to step up on that podium you must so much must yeah must must must flash through your mind when you actually stand there and it dip your head and it goes around it neck and up goes the flag absolutely and for me the person presenting can also

add to that emotion. So in both Tokyo and Paris, my chef de mission from 92 presented me with medals. And I was just like, that made it even more emotional because he was emotional about the fact that he'd seen this child as a 14 year old and the pride from me winning when he was our chef de mission right the way through to now winning, you know, eight, nine games later. So that was the most incredible thing as well. When you're, you know, you know, you know the person presenting you that adds to the emotion further yeah and the whole sort paralytic movement have you noticed a change in your time from that 14 year old I don't know in the way that people support it and get more engaged in in Paralympic sport and I wonder if

London the London well it's Olympic and Paralympic Games doesn't it it was kind of combined for the first time did that have a big part do you think in that well Subco was absolute genius and insisting that that was how we called it It'd always been the same event, the same games, but it never had to be, there was never a requirement contractually to talk about it in that way. So it was either the Games, the London Games, or the Olympic and Paralympic Games. And it was really important that because it meant that it became into the conscience of more people than just those people who were there. The games in Barcelona were incredibly well attended. They closed a lot of the temporary seating they'd open for the Olympics, thinking it wouldn't be needed for the Paralympics.

Well, the success of the Paralympics was such that they had to reopen those temporary stadium. So that meant that we had as many people watching in Barcelona as had the Olympics, which meant that, you know, actually on the ground, it was just as well done. It was just as well supported. But externally, the coverage wasn't there. So nobody at home saw that because we had an hour of coverage highlights programs maybe once every four days. Whereas now it's water wall to all coverage, it's live coverage. We're talking about the lives versus the...

the highlights versus the behind-the-scenes stuff. So I think it's that broadcast side, that media side that's really changed the most because the crowds on the ground have always been immense. It's just been the external things. And the number of countries that we've had the games broadcast into, that's increased immensely as well. Yeah.

And the atmosphere amongst Paralympians, you know, in the village and so on, you know, all of such a massive wide range of people taking part. I guess that's really excellent, isn't it? Amazing, just the same as it would be in any Olympic village. And the same, we've had the Commonwealth Games here in Manchester. I went to the Commonwealth Games in Delhi in 2010. I was the first English cyclist to go in the women's team.

There was no parac cycling events. And it was, you know, the athlete side is no different. Well, a lot of us trained together. Our sports are kind of worked together. You know, we train in the same training groups, athletics, swimming, cycling and other sports. So from an athlete's side, we're all part of the same team. And the feeling in the village and that excitement is the same.

The challenges of the village are the same, you know, the potential distraction. Yes, of course. And I think that it's just been that outward focus and where it's been sent, where the pictures have gone have been the big change. Well, Sarah, it's been a long time to have set this date, isn't it? When was it we did that question? Was it 2021? Was it after Tokyo?

I think it was before COVID. I can't remember. But we've made it. We've made it. It's lovely, and you've been a lovely guest. Thank you. And I really wish you the best here for your second year as president. They've got a very motivational person.

I mean, looking at you, the way you speak, you know, you're just, you're on it, aren't you? I mean, you're just one of those people that you've got a lot of energy. A lot of energy, a lot of big passion for sport and sports performance and people finding their own best version of themselves. Because ultimately, you know, it doesn't matter whether we're in sport or any walk of life. If we can get the most out of ourselves, then we get the most out of life as well, don't we? Here to that. Phil Huxley says you've got to be the future minister for sport. You fancy that?

We have a former Minister of Sport in our box today. Oh, have you? Which one? Hugh Robertson. Oh, yes, absolutely. Yeah, he was. He was indeed. Dame Sarah Story, lovely to catch up with you.

Yes, you too. Thanks for coming to see us. A lovely chat. Thank you. The TMS podcast on BBC Sounds. Hello, Chris Jones here from Rugby Union Weekly. We're all over the Lions Tour of Australia. Pre-Match podcast, post-match podcast, on the Whistle Podcasts from all the Lions matches down under.

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