Dame Sarah Storey wins road race to secure 14th Paralympic gold

By Dev Trehan

Image: Dame Sarah Storey stormed to her third gold in Rio

Dame Sarah Storey won the 14th Paralympic gold of her career with a commanding victory in the women's C4/C5 road race in Rio on Saturday.

Her triumph in the road race saw the 38-year-old collect her third title in Brazil as Paralympic GB claimed 21 medals on the penultimate day of the Rio Games - six of them gold.

The team's medal haul now stands at 147 medals - 64 of them gold - going into Sunday's 11th and final day.

Storey's victory in the 75km road race followed her day one triumph in the 3km individual pursuit - a win which saw her overtake wheelchair racer Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson as Britain's most decorated Paralympian - and the road time-trial last Wednesday.

Storey, who won four golds in four events at London 2012 to take her Paralympic title tally to 11 before giving birth to daughter Louisa in 2013, said: "Each Games is so special for many different reasons.

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"London was our greatest Games because it was at home. Four gold medals at home was beyond my wildest dreams, but to come back after pregnancy...there was a point where I was sat at home having gained four stone and I never thought I was coming back to anything, let alone to win three more.

Image: Storey has continued her incredible Paralympic success on the Rio stage

"I was sat there thinking, 'How do you get rid of this weight?'. But nature is amazing. The pressure was off me when I did those things in London. I came back without any expectation.

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"If it didn't work it didn't work and I'd tried. That's life. But it's worked and I'm really enjoying the fact I've got my family here. Louisa is asleep. That seems to be her trademark - to fall asleep when mum's racing."

After John Walker's win on Friday, a second and third archery gold medal followed on the penultimate day of the Games.

Jessica Stretton beat team-mate Jo Frith in the women's wheelchair final 137-124 to take Paralympics GB's overall medal tally to 129. That was after Vicky Jenkins won the duel for bronze, beating Kim Ok-Geum of South Korea 125-124. Frith then combined with Walker to win the mixed team gold.

Britain's swimmers claimed nine medals on the final evening of competition in the pool, including three golds. Bethany Firth won her third gold of the Rio Games after Ollie Hynd and Hannah Russell had emerged from the water victorious.

Abby Kane - the youngest member of Paralympics GB, aged 13 - claimed a silver, Steph Millward, Jessica-Jane Applegate and Tom Hamer did, too, while Ellie Robinson and Andrew Mullen took bronze. Mullen's third place was behind Brazil's Daniel Dias as he won his 14th Paralympic title.

Britain are now one gold medal short of the haul of 65 from the Seoul Paralympics 28 years ago with only the tally of 107 golds from the New York/Stoke Mandeville Games of 1984 seeming beyond this team.

China lead the medal standings, but Britain's advantage over a chasing pack led by Ukraine appears unassailable.

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