Britain's Storey rides into the record books

BRANDS HATCH, United Kingdom (AFP) –

Britain’s Sarah Storey poses on the podium with her gold medal after victory in the women’s individual C4-5 road race cycling final during the London 2012 Paralympic Games at Brands Hatch circuit, in Kent.

Sarah Storey on Thursday topped the list of Britain’s most decorated Paralympians after racing to victory in the C4/5 road race at Brands Hatch.

The 34-year-old’s win was her fourth of the Games and the 11th in her 20-year Paralympic career, after she won five swimming golds before switching to cycling for Beijing in 2008. She also has seven silver medals and three bronzes.

The feat takes her above Tanni Grey-Thompson in the table, the legendary wheelchair racer who garnered 11 golds, four silvers and one bronze.

Storey, from Manchester in northwest England, said: “To be even on the same page as Tanni, to have won 11 and make it a clean sweep for this week, is just a dream come true. I don’t know if it’ll ever sink in.”

Grey-Thompson wrote on Twitter after the race: “@MrsSarahStorey wins her 11th gold medal. Congratulations !!!!!”

The British Paralympic Association said swimmer Mike Kenny won 16 golds and two silvers from 1976 to 1988 but Games records from that period were “sketchy, so it is difficult to be definitive about who is the greatest of all time”.

Storey was dominant throughout the 64km race at the motor racing circuit in southeast England, finishing 7min 22sec clear of Poland’s Anna Harkowska, who earned a third silver behind the Briton. US rider Kelly Crowley took bronze.

She even caught up competitors in the men’s C1-3 event, who started their race two minutes before the women, and passed their peloton.

“I’d completely forgotten about the men until I could see the back of their peloton. I just managed to hold them off but I was dying,” said Storey, who was born without a functioning left hand.

Storey narrowly missed out on a place in Britain’s Olympic cycling team but showed her class in the Velodrome by posting a qualifying time in the 3km pursuit that would have won her silver in the non-disabled World Championships.

Olympic champion Victoria Pendleton said of Storey this week: “She competed for Team GB as an able-bodied athlete at the World Championships and in the Paralympics and there’s no reason she couldn’t compete as part of the Olympic team.

“She proved she can compete as an Paralympian and an able bodied Olympian.”