Sarah Storey: Becoming a parent has given me a fresh outlook on what's really important

Storey and her husband Barney – a three-time Paralympic champion as a tandem pilot for visually-impaired riders – have two children. Here she writes on International Women’s Day 2019

Dame Sarah Storey is a 14-time Paralympic champion, with nine gold medals in cycling (from 2008 to 2016) and five from swimming (1992 to 2004).

Storey and her husband Barney – a three-time Paralympic champion as a tandem pilot for visually-impaired riders – have two children, five-year-old daughter Louisa and 16-month old son Charlie. Here Storey writes on International Women’s Day 2019.

Becoming a parent has given me a fresh outlook on what’s really important.

When I finish training for the day then I don’t have time to consider whether it was good or bad.

Similarly at competition time, I’m entertaining children and doing something with them which completely distracts me from thinking about racing.

I took a break to have Louisa after London 2012 and returning for the Rio Paralympics, with my daughter there, was really special.

To get four gold medals at home was beyond my wildest dreams, but to come back after pregnancy... there was a point where I was sitting at home having gained four stones and I never thought I was coming back to anything, let alone to win three more.

But nature is amazing and seeing the Games through Louisa’s eyes was just brilliant. It brings back that child-like joy.

She’d notice things which I didn’t and kids don’t have any hang-ups about stuff.

Storey is looking forward to having her two children watching on in Tokyo (Getty)

I’m really looking forward to having Charlie there with Louisa in Tokyo.

There’s an old saying that it takes a village to raise a child. And I think it does.

Both sets of grandparents were in Rio to see me race and to help look after Louisa. I couldn’t do it without Barney.

I do go to bed early if I need to and Barney takes the lion’s share of tidying up in the kitchen and doing the washing. And he’ll get up early in the morning to get things ready.

We do focus a lot about rest as athletes, but when the reason you’re not resting is someone you’d do anything for, it’s not really an issue. If one of the kids is up in the night you deal with it.

Storey enjoyed a successful Paralympics in Rio (Getty)

We really are a team when it comes to bringing the kids up and balancing things out. We put them first and build the rest of our lives around that.

We try to coincide training camps with the school holidays, but lots of working parents can’t choose when they’re working and need to take their children away.

When that happens, I become mummy teacher. I go into school once a week to listen to Louisa’s class read and when we’re away, we make sure we’re doing the best for her education.

I spoke to Shelley Rudman, the silver medallist from the 2006 Turin Olympics, who home-schooled her first child while on the skeleton circuit.

And I also took advice from Tanni Grey-Thompson, who won 11 Paralympic gold medals as a wheelchair racer and became a mum late in her athletics career.

There are quite a few working mums in cycling. Because women in endurance cycling get better into their thirties, it comes to the point where some of them have children during their career.

There’s Laura Kenny and Lizzie Deignan in the British squad and I am happy to give advice and support.

Cycling’s not necessarily the easiest sport to have children because of the travelling, it’s just you can compete into your 40s.

For me, International Women’s Day is about recognising that so many women don’t have the opportunities we have, but we should highlight that on more than one day of the year.

The theme this year is ‘Better for Balance’ and there’s work to do in all aspects of life, including in cycling.

We are very fortunate compared to many and it’s getting better, but there’s a long way to go to making it as equal as it should be.

With our cycling team, Storey Racing, which competes domestically and internationally, we’re working with younger riders now – we’ve got six seniors and six under-18s.

As the elite peloton becomes more professional, we want to mentor the younger riders, so they can make good decisions on and off the bike.

We want their futures to be bright and full of opportunity; just like for our children.