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Dame Sarah Storey hopes her fourth BBC Sports Personality of the Year nomination can be a good omen, but believes a lack of visibility for para athletes is behind why she is a rank outsider for the award.
Storey, who turned 47 in October, made the shortlist after she won an 18th and 19th Paralympic gold medal at the Paris Games in September before she followed it up with the successful defence of her time-trial and road-race titles at the UCI Para-cycling Road World Championships later that month.
It has been another record-breaking year for the most decorated Paralympian in Great British history, but bookmakers have made Storey 100-1 to win on December 17th with Olympic champion Keeley Hodgkinson the favourite after her gold in the 800 metres in Paris.
After Storey missed out on a top-three finish in her previous nominations in 2012, 2016 and 2021, she highlighted the lack of coverage for para events for why there is yet to be a Paralympic winner of the accolade.
“I won four gold medals in 24 days in September 2024 and this is the fourth time I’ve been on the list. So, maybe someone with a crystal ball will tell me whether all those fours means it’s a good thing,” Storey said with a smile.
“I think we don’t get enough coverage between Games. Para-sport disappears for the four years in between. There isn’t sufficient funding and support for any of the para-athletes – maybe except tennis – for athletes to be professional athletes, so the vast majority of para-athletes will have a job of some kind.
Storey competed at her first Paralympics in 1992 at the age of 14 and discussed how she has to juggle work commitments – with roles at Great Manchester, Lancashire Cricket Club and Manchester Met Institute of Sport – alongside full-time training.
While the 47-year-old, who had to pull out of ITV’s upcoming Dancing on Ice show over a fractured ankle, has seen improvements in funding, she pointed the finger at Union Cycliste Internationale, the world governing body of cycling, for a lack of visibility away from Paralympic Games.
Manchester-born Storey added: “I’m in my fourth decade now, I suppose, aren’t I? And it’s gradually and incrementally got better. The National Lottery was a game-changer, but it’s still the case that we struggle with funding and with exposure.
“And you only have to look at comments when I was found to be out of Dancing on Ice. People were like, ‘well, who is she? Hopefully, she’s replaced with someone who’s more well-known’, and that just says a lot, doesn’t it?
“People don’t see para sport on the TV enough to know who their most successful athlete is.”
Asked what she would change, Storey explained: “I would make sure that we utilise some of the coffers that are in there, in the international governing bodies, to start to speculate to accumulate on the coverage front.
“We need to see the event at the highest level – World Championships, World Cup events – on the TV. We need to see that streamed with proper coverage.
“When I’m following my own sport and I know where to look for it, it’s not well laid out, it’s not well done. So, when you look at the way the UCI do things, the only reason we got coverage at the World Championships in Zurich was because we happened to be part of the event where the able-bodied riders were.
“If we were standalone, like it will be next year in Belgium, I can almost guarantee the coverage will be nothing like what we experienced in Zurich. The UCI have had hold of para cycling since 2006/2007. So, in almost 20 years, very little has improved.
“I think once we’ve got coverage, once we’ve got a narrative in between the Paralympic Games, we start to see those personalities coming out.”
BBC Sports Personality of the Year will be available to watch live on BBC One and iPlayer from 7pm on Tuesday 17 December.
