In a victory for middle aged women everywhere, 46-year-old Dame Sarah Storey chased down and outsprinted a teenager, 19-year-old French star Heïdi Gaugain, to win the women’s C4-5 road race by half a wheel in a high-stakes last two kilometres coming into Clichy-sous-Bois.
It was Storey’s second gold of the Paralympics, after taking the time trial on Wednesday, meaning that her outrageous medal haul, 19 golds in nine games (her first was Barcelona in 1992), now includes golds in four consecutive road races in London, Rio, Tokyo and now Paris.
Storey doesn’t make many – any – concessions to age, but even she had to admit that her “glutes were on fire” after the race and her body was creaking, but “it’s finding the ways to manage the process and privilege of getting older as an athlete”.
Storey had been in the leading pack alongside Gaugain from early in the race as they zipped past the flats with the window boxes stuffed with geraniums, past the lines of excited schoolchildren hanging from the railings marking the route, past the waving French flags; the surprised dog walkers, the wayward long grasses of the early autumn verges and the earthy surrounds of the Parisian suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois – seven laps of 14.2 km through Seine-Saint-Denis. And all the time, the helicopters buzzed overhead and the sunglass-wearing gendarmes on their motorbikes looked straight ahead.
But by the final stages of the race, it was just Storey v Gaugain. When Gaugain made the break with less than two kilometres to go, you wondered whether age was finally catching up with Storey, who dropped behind, pedalling energetically in her dark blue body suit. Ha!
“The lap before, a coach of hers shouted from the other side of the road: ‘Next lap on the left,’ so I had a look where we were to make sure I was ready for that,” said Storey. “So when he shouted ‘Go’ I went too. Heïdi took a little bit of a gap which is fine because that’s a big acceleration that she had made. I had a little bit of speed because I was trying to preempt it, then it is just a matter of holding her while she continued her acceleration.
“It was a long way out but it was the only tactics you could use because I have the faster sprint and then when we were together in that final corner that’s when I unleashed it. She tried to come again – because I had my head down I could see furiously pedalling feet – but I threw my bike and it was fine.
“The key is not to be afraid to lose a bike race; I’m not afraid to lose a bike race I have to trust myself and not overthink things and just go on instinct sometimes. It’s about racing so I just wanted to see what I had to respond with: You put yourself out there every time you get on the startline and I keep doing that and keep finding ways to win a bike race so long may that continue.”
It was by far the closest finish of her Paralympic road race career. “In London I won by eight minutes and in Rio I won by six; Tokyo was about 30 seconds so yes: it’s very exciting. Heïdi is 19. I think back to when I was 19, I’d just come back from Atlanta, I had my fifth gold medal as a swimmer and I was in the form of my life. I was thinking you’re up against a 19-year-old you remember what that was like … I’m still nippy for a 46-year-old but have to use it wisely.”
Poor Gaugain looked devastated when she realised what had happened, barely raising a smile even on the podium, despite the enthusiasm of the crowd over the road. It is her third silver of the Games, she also finished second to Storey in the time trial. Storey meanwhile was asked about LA.
“I need to enjoy this one first. To quote Simone Biles: ‘Never say never to anything.’ This needs to sink in; it was one of the most exciting races that we’ve had.” And what keeps her going? “Carrots like that one in the last kilometre.” Gaugain may not have seen the back of her yet.
