Storey leads British Paralympic velodrome medal rush

Veteran stars as Brits rack up podium places aplenty, writes Vern Pitt

- Vern Pitt

Dame Sarah Storey kicked off Britain’s dominant performance in the Izu Velodrome at the Tokyo Paralympics last week.

The British team topped the medal table with six golds, six silvers and two bronze.

Veteran Storey was the first Brit to claim gold on day one with a blistering performance in the C5 3,000 metre individual pursuit.

She set a new world record of 3:27.057 in her qualifying ride. That knocked over four seconds off her previous best from the Rio Paralympics. The 43-year-old then took the decision to set off at an extremely high pace in the final in an attempt to catch teammate Crystal Lane-Wright. She duly did so at the 2,000m mark.

The win was her 15th Paralympic gold and brought Storey to the brink of becoming Britain’s most successful Paralympian of all time, at the time of going to press, with two events left for her to ride.

Speaking after the individual pursuit win she said: “It’s hard to put into words. I’ve won a medal at every single Games I’ve been to and this is my fourth time in a row winning the individual pursuit.