Listening to Morgan Newberry talk, her passion is crystal clear even at this relatively early stage of her career.
But perhaps that’s not a surprise. The young cyclist has not only been drawing comparisons to Paralympic legend Dame Sarah Storey, she has also been mentored by her as well.
Newberry, from Leicester, is a graduate of Storey’s development academy - the ŠKODA DSI Cycling Academy - and in 2022 she is racing for her team too, Storey Racing. It’s all part of a whirlwind journey that has the cyclist aiming to represent Britain at the next Paralympic Games, and the influence of her cycling idol has certainly shown.
“When you know your actual role model, that’s quite a unique experience!” Newberry says. “Having Sarah to bounce any questions off is pretty amazing.
“Me and Sarah have the same disability and she’s got all the experience on top of me so she can answer any question or tell me what her opinion would be on that. It’s pretty inspiring and it does motivate me, not to be like Sarah, but look at the things she’s done.
“She’s taught me a lot about being an athlete but also, for me, in regards to cycling she's taught me a lot to do with bike handling and the way - having the same disability as her - affects cycling. It’s like having an advanced insight into something I would have found out the long way, but now I found out a lot quicker.”
"I know I’m part of an amazing team”
Alongside Storey’s invaluable mentoring and encouragement, Newberry’s experience goes even further than that. The Paralympic hopeful credits Storey’s husband Barney after he helped adapt her race bike so she could ride more efficiently one-handed.
With that level of personal attention, and the tools given to her by being a part of the cycling academy, Newberry finds herself as a very different athlete compared to a few years back.
“The academy gave me an opportunity that I don’t think anything would have ever given me,” she explains. “I went from being a club level uni cyclist, I was in my second year of uni at the time, then got on the academy and I’ve just gone on a positive trajectory upwards.
“Now I’m actually racing for Storey Racing this year, which is a massive upgrade. I’m really proud of it because, last year especially, I was able to race in loads of different races and really get stuck in. I think that I proved myself and my potential hopefully to Sarah.”
That call up to Storey Racing also can’t be underestimated. It’s a hugely positive step for a rider who has big ambitions even if it did come as a massive surprise at the time.
“The offer from Sarah to join Storey Racing was actually quite a shock,” Newberry adds. “I thought about different scenarios and I really wanted to stay as part of a team. I didn’t want to finish ŠKODA and get a downgrade and not be part of a team.
“The offer from Sarah was like, ‘oh wow, you really think I’m worth coming to join your team - that’s amazing’. So it wasn’t the plan to go and join Storey Racing but it was the plan to stay involved in women’s cycling in a way I was never before the academy. I know I’m part of an amazing team.”
Newberry continues: “For me and my own personal targets, obviously I do women’s able-bodied cycling and I’m a para-cyclist so I’m involved in that.
“But I’ve not been able to have many race opportunities within that yet, because of Covid, but I really would like to say I want to get to the Paralympic Games and I do want to bring home a medal. That’s not a dream I’ve always had but it's a dream I’ve allowed myself to have because of the work that has come in the last three years.”
"The girls in the school I work in just aren't motivated by sport"
When it comes to Newberry’s passions, her love of cycling is obviously up there, but the way she cares about progressing women’s sport is also evident for all to see. It’s another similarity to Storey who has invested so much energy in furthering women’s cycling and finding a “better version of herself”.
It’s one of the key reasons the academy exists and it has presented several female riders with opportunities they might not have had otherwise. “The academy is massive and it fills a gap that women’s cycling doesn’t have, and a lot of women’s sport doesn’t have,” Newberry says.
“What the academy is bridging is a gap where women might not have been involved in cycling as a sport through their childhood - some people develop as juniors and then go straight into elite racing. This is for people who got into cycling at a later age, maybe at uni, they want to get heavily involved in it but actually it’s quite hard to get involved if you’re not part of a club.
“You might not have many female friends in the sport so something like the academy allows people to come here and meet and greet loads of girls who are all interested in the same thing and fill that gap where there maybe isn’t enough investment in certain groups of people wanting to get involved in women’s sport.”
Of course the furthering of women’s sport is not something that is completely unique to cycling. It’s a challenge many sports are facing - and about time too - but it’s something Newberry is acutely aware of thanks to her own experiences working in a school.
“It still needs more - equal pay and things like that,” she adds. “But a big thing I find important - I work in a school part time - and the girls in the school I work in just aren't motivated by sport.
“I think there’s a big gap there where we need to work with the school just to set up programmes that actually work. It's not just about playing netball, it’s about making people interested and keeping them fit at a younger age rather than them getting to their mid-20s and now it’s ‘right let’s get fit and sort everything out’.
“If we can get them involved earlier, and we can get more people involved in sport anyway, that can be an easy way of targeting more people to get involved in sport, because they don’t have those opportunities at the moment. You have to want it, if you don’t want it you have to be offered it on a plate and maybe you’ll then be interested in it.”
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Morgan Newberry has graduated from the ŠKODA DSI Cycling Academy that was set up to support aspiring female cyclists and address the gender imbalance in cycling. For more information visit www.skoda.co.uk/discover/cycling-academy
