University to honour Sarah Storey

10 Dec 2012

The University will award an honorary degree to Great Britain’s most decorated female Paralympian, Sarah Storey OBE, today (Monday 10 December).

Sarah is one of the world's most versatile athletes having won World and Paralympic Gold medals in both swimming (six Golds) and cycling (five). In total, she has won eleven Gold, eight Silver and three Bronze medals in six Paralympic Games.

Her tally of 22 medals puts her level with wheelchair athlete Baroness Grey-Thompson and swimmer Dave Roberts in career titles.

In London 2012, she topped the medal table for the British Team with four Gold Medals from four events,  including an impressive World Record in her first event, the C5 Women’s 3000m Individual Pursuit.

Sarah, 35, is still based in Disley where she grew up, and regularly trains in Cheshire and the Peak District as well as at the Manchester Velodrome.

To cap a glorious year, Sarah has also been named as one of the contenders for BBC Sports Personality of the Year after being named on the 12-person shortlist last week.  The winner will be decided by a public vote on the night of the event at London’s ExCeL Arena on Sunday.

Despite her Paralympic success, Sarah shows no sign of slowing down. She said: "I love sport and even if I was retiring I would still be riding my bike so for me it will always be a part of my life, and it doesn’t matter if that means competing at the highest level or just cycling events for fun."

Sarah – who is married to Barney Storey, another of Britain’s Paralympic cycling gold medallists – has already said she will defend her titles at Rio in 2016: "I have four titles to hopefully defend in Rio but once we know what the schedule will be like we can put together a more sophisticated plan and go back to defending as many as possible."