Dame Sarah Storey had just cycled through rivers of unremitting rain for more than two hours so you imagined her response might have been ‘enough’, when reminded that the Paralympian with the most gold medals, American swimmer Trischa Zorn, won 40 and competed for 24 years.
Not so. She watched Sebastian Rodriguez, a 64-year-old she used to swim with, compete on Thursday. ‘And Heinz Frei was racing in the handbikes at 63 as well,’ Storey said. ‘So I’m a spring chicken.’
The dramatic way she had just become Britain’s most successful Paralympian, by a measure of 17 gold medals won, reinforced that she is not the typical 43-year-old. Visibility was negligible at times as rain was dumped on Mount Fuji’s foothills. There was also serious jeopardy, with German Kirstin Brachtendorf more than a minute ahead with a third of the race to go.
Dame Sarah Storey became Britain's greatest ever Paralympian overnight with her 17th gold
For once, Storey needed a team-mate. She and the chasing pack were not shifting the dial on Brachtendorf’s lead until her compatriot Crystal Lane-Wright, the perennial silver medallist, took over the group. They then took 12km to reel in and overtake the German.
Stoney and Lane-Wright then talked as they raced on, though their accounts of what was said did not entirely tally.
Lane-Wright said she had told Storey: ‘This is your gold medal — you don’t have to worry, I won’t take it. I won’t even attempt to take it away from you.’ Lane-Wright admitted that this was ‘probably not the most athletic, competitive thing to do’.
But Storey said that it was she who had led the assault on Brachtendorf in the first place and she who had helped drag an exhausted Lane-Wright to silver.
The 43-year-old came from behind to win the C4-5 road race in a downpour in Tokyo, Japan
Storey said: ‘Crystal was saying, “Get me up the climb, I need to get the silver medal”. And then I just went full gas into the finish.
‘We didn’t have a conversation about how the race would go before but once we are in that race-winning mood, she was able to
