It took the Olympic athletes four long days before winning the first gold. In the Paralympics it took less than one as cyclist Sarah Storey won the Individual C5 Pursuit today.
Storey, 33, qualified to the final with world record time 3:32.170 and beat Polish Anna Harkowska in front of 6,000 cheering fans in the Velodrome.
After the semi-final Storey told the Evening Standard about the crowd, including Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge.
She said: “I know we heard our colleagues say this during the Olympics, but it’s so hard to explain the energy they give you. I just can’t explain it really.”
Storey, an eight-time Paralympic champion who also competes in able-bodied track cycling, won her first gold medal in swimming in Barcelona 1992 writes the Daily Mail.
The home nation’s first Paralympic medal had come a few hours earlier as British cyclist Mark Colbourne won a silver in the C1-2-3 1km trial.
The Welshman was three seconds behind Chinese gold medallist Li Zhang Yu, who broke the world record with 1:05.021.
Colbourne, who also has represented Wales in volleyball, told BBC: “We’ve worked for the last eight months towards this. I’m very happy.
“I was just completely focused on the black line. We’ve done this hundreds of times in training and it’s about repeating the process.
“I probably only heard the crowd on lap three when I had relaxed into my stride.”
Colbourne, 41, does his first Paralympics after breaking his back in a paragliding accident three years ago.
Tobias Graf from Germany won bronze just before Team GB’s Darren Kenny.
Image via Getty.
