“Legend”: Tributes paid to Dame Sarah Storey after 60-time major champion announces retirement; Big Pyrenees mountain stage in the Tour de France + more on the live blog
Tributes to a legend
There’s only one place to start today’s live blog, with the news that Dame Sarah Storey, the most decorated Paralympian and British athlete of all time, has announced her retirement.
Storey started out as a swimmer, competing in the 1992 Barcelona Paralympics age 14. She won two golds, three silvers and a bronze in those Games alone.
She retires with 60-major titles across swimming and cycling, including 14 (Fourteen!) Paralympic gold medals in cycling, and 32 rainbow jerseys on the track and road. She was also immensely successful in able-bodied competitions, winning six national titles on the track and winning rounds of the UCI Track World Cup in the team pursuit as part of TeamGB.
“I am so privileged to have spent 35 years as an international athlete. I genuinely pinch myself that my childhood dream of being an athlete for as long as I possibly could has led to nine Paralympic Games and opportunities across so many sporting events.”
There are not enough words in this blog entry to summarise Storey’s sporting achievements, nor her move into the important world of active travel commissioning.
Already the tributes have started coming in:
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“Congratulations and also THANK YOU for everything you’ve given sport; your mentorship, your leadership and your passion. Forever grateful for the part you paid in my career 💛 Welcome to the next adventures 🙌👏👑”, Olympic gold medallist wrote Joanna Rowsell wrote.
Fellow dual sport athlete Kadeena Cox wrote, “Congratulations on an amazing career @damesarahstorey a pleasure to have been on the team with you👏👏👏”
Dame Sarah Storey, Great Britain’s most-decorated Paralympian, has retired from international competition with immediate effect.
The 48-year-old cyclist, who is a 19-time Paralympic champion, told #BBCBreakfast about how she spoke to her family first about not competing at Los… pic.twitter.com/F2yAI5TYHJ
— BBC Breakfast (@BBCBreakfast) July 9, 2026
Olympic hockey gold medallist Kate Richardson-Walsh wrote, “Congratulations on all you have achieved in that chapter of your life. You’re already smashing it in the next chapter. You’re an incredible athlete and person. Proud to have shared the pool with you 😜 x”
Rugby star Ugo Monye kept it simple: “Legend ❤️” whilst gymnast Joe Fraser left a “🐐”
Feel free to share your favourite Storey memory in the comments. For me it was the Paris 2024 road race, her ninth Paralympics, outsprinting the home favourite Heidi Gauguin. Simply phenomenal…
New roadside road.cc podcast episode!
If you fancy hearing some dulcet tones with your late-morning breakaway formation, Ryan’s sent us an audio dispatch from the race…
> Is Tadej Pogačar being unfairly criticised for simply trying to win the Tour de France?
The high mountains are here
Is this the day? When things fall into place? Torstein Traeen woke up this morning having presumably gone to bed, with even the whites in the cuddly lion’s eyes turning red.
Even yesterday’s sprint stage had some late drama as crashes split the peloton, though the GC favourites finished just about close enough to prevent any time gaps. Today will be a rather different affair, with the feared Col du Tourmalet only an hors d’oeuvre before a final climb to Gavarnie-Gedre. But Traeen has a seven minute advantage over the favourites of Pogacar and Vingegaard so barring the race exploding on the Tourmalet’s lower slopes, you’d have thought the Norwegian should more than hold on to yellow.
Here’s what Ryan wrote about today’s stage before the race began…
“This may be the only true Pyrenean test of the 2026 Tour, but due to the organisers’ ambitions for a suspenseful GC race, today’s stage has been watered down, in a bid to dissuade Pogačar ripping things up before we’ve even reached the first weekend.
“In fact, this stage has a whiff of the Giro about it, the Italian grand tour often following up a brute like the Mortirolo with a long drag to the line. The big tests here are still huge. The Aspin and Tourmalet are legends of the Tour, and don’t be shocked if UAE Team Emirates decide to light it up on the first HC climb of the race.
“However, the Tourmalet tops out with just under 40km to go, and is followed by an 18.7km drag to the line at Gavarnie-Gèdre which, in normal times, would have promised a small group sprint between some skinny climbers. It’s a climb easy and long enough to allow a strong team to snuff out a long-range attack – but whether that convinces Pogačar to wait for another day remains to be seen.
“Sofa score: 8/10. I say an 8, but we all know Tadej will try something, don’t we?”
Afghan ingenuity
People are good…
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The day I got peed on at the Tour de France
I’m quite… relieved to know that Ryan’s work highlight of the year isn’t exclusive glamourous shoulder rubbing and lunch buffets…
> The day I got peed on at the Tour de France
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On the contrary, Pogacar is showing us that winning is irrelevant. Its team work that counts and how you play the game. Even Pog has the whole truth of the thing in perspective. He’s already said that if he never wins again, he’s happy. He’s quietly saying that the whole obsession with winning is unhealthy. He’s dropped 7 mins in this years TDF. If other teams are strong enough they could win. The whole journey of every cycling grand tour is full of hundreds of team and individual stories, far more interesting than whoever ‘wins’ overall. Strategy is everything…let’s see a whole lot more outside the norm! …Pog is inviting it.
Sodium =/= salt. Lithium batteries are already salty - just with lithium salts. A polymer electrolyte might even make it less salty. [Salt batteries (including sodium- and lithium-based varieties) are a whole other thing again.]
Really hope these guys or a company like them can come up with an environmentally friendly and non-combustable solution for ebike batteries. I don't have an ebike at the moment because I don't need one, but I did have one to get me through serious illness and I might well want one in future if the illness comes back or I generally just get more infirm; one of the reasons I sold it was for peace of mind as I didn't have to worry any more about remembering whether I had unplugged the charger before leaving home. A battery with zero fire risk would be a major selling point for me.
@quiff Doh! You're playing 5D pedant chess here.
@Wales56 Thank you for that. I visited Bristol yesterday. Bus and train. I was astounded by the number of cyclists even on the steep hills in a heatwave. Many people still drive though and the traffic was horrendous meaning a short bus journey from Temple Meads to the center took ages. Quicker than walking (just) but cycling would have been much quicker. The number of cycle paths does mean you need to be aware as a pedestrian but I was prepared for this after getting in the way of a cyclist on my previous vist a few years ago. Needless to say the train on the return journey was overcrowded (had to stand for the journey) and delayed and meaning missing a few public transport connections which made the journey take longer than needed. Even with these frustrations it was much more relaxing than driving. 20 years ago I would have driven without even thinking about it.
@quiff Should be on a new sub-tier website 'OffroadRacing.cc' :)
There you go, getting in a tangle over terminology again - you've written 'subtle', when what you meant was 'incoherent'.
…serves you right for seeking out such a cliche of a photo opp! 🙃 sunflowers, please 🙄
@quiff The police definitely can't park where they like (rephrase: legally they definitely can't park where they like, in practice…), if they are not on emergency response all traffic laws and regulations apply to them just as they do to the ordinary motorist. I have an ongoing battle with the Met regarding the bus lane outside King's College Hospital on Denmark Hill; every morning there will be three or four police cars or vans parked in the lane, often on the zigzags of the pelican crossing there, forcing buses, motorcyclists and cyclists to switch out into the busy main traffic lane. As a user of the hospital myself I know that very rarely do they have any police business in the hospital, they are usually getting coffee and doughnuts from the in-hospital Costa. The Met has admitted that they should not be parking there and promised to sort it out, but my dialogue with them has lasted more than five years now and every morning they are still there just the same.