Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Britain's most decorated Paralympic athlete, with 17 gold medals across swimming and cycling, and active travel commissioner in Manchester.
On the island
Eight records
Livin' on a PrayerFavourite
It really has punctuated my entire life and there was a point in my teens and early 20s where if this came on anywhere then me and my circle of girlfriends would ring each other up and just play it to each other. … The clarion called to the dance floor I'm sure. It absolutely was. Fling your handbags down. We're going out there. We're dancing.
Kylie is for someone I've known all my life, not she doesn't know me. I've watched her from her time as an actress on Neighbours all the way through her career and I've been to see her in concert a few times. And she played at the Paralympic Games opening ceremony in Sydney in two thousand as well.
They sort of started and became big as I started and I didn't become quite so big. But they were just always there, the music was always there on poolside when you're going to events. They're always on the radio, always in the background. And I've always watched been to a couple of concerts as well. And it was another another group that would always get us out on the dance floor.
So we're going to hear Boyzone a different beat. I actually met Boyzone on Knoll's House Party in 1996. They were playing this particular song on that show, and I was on Knoll's House Party after the games in Atlanta. I was the most successful British athlete at those games.
It was a track that Barney and I walked out from the church to at our wedding. And it's also the track that Manchester United walk out to when they're going to play in Old Trafford.
Well, I'm taking this one with me because it's an anthem of the London Games, David Bowie's Heroes. Just every time I hear that song, I just think about the London 2012 Games, everything that the Games encapsulated. So I just, yeah, a song that you can't really ever leave behind.
This actual song was played as I walked out to the bike to ride in the final of the individual pursuit at the 2019 World Championships on the track. … [The DJ] said, Well, you can choose your tracks, then I don't have that's one less job for me. So I said, Oh, anything by the Spice Girls, and he came up with some banging tunes.
Well being a Manchester girl and you know working so much in the city now I've chosen a Manchester track.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:09How does it feel standing on the podium after a win, hearing the national anthem?
It's a moment where you get goosebumps. It's really difficult to explain and it's actually one of the reasons I wanted to become an athlete because when I was watching the 1984 Olympic Games I was listening to athletes trying to explain it to me as a six-year-old and I was not really getting what they were saying and I thought actually I need to find this out for myself and it's that moment where everything has come together. There's a huge sense of relief because you've been building up to that moment of crossing the finish line for such a long time and you've never dared to allow yourself to think about what a podium might look like.
Presenter asks
3:58How do you feel about the prospect of being selected for your ninth Olympics, Paris 2024?
I never imagined that I'd be continuing to compete beyond Tokyo, really, in the build-up to Tokyo before the pandemic. And then, when nobody could come to the Games, and my little boy, who would have been three at the Games, couldn't be there and desperately wanted to be, it was just too much to say no and not try again. Unfinished business. Unfinished business. And also for him, because his sister had been at the Rio Games and she was three years old there. She famously sang Let It Go instead of the national anthem in the track.
Presenter asks
The keepsakes
The book
Steve Peters
I worked with Dr. Steve Peters extensively … but although I've worked with him for a while, I've never read his book.
The luxury
so that I can go fishing, I can look at the reef. And I promised not to escape.
At what point did you realise you were really talented at swimming, better than the other kids?
Well, we had a school swimming club which was born out of a tragedy in our village. … there had been a little boy that lost his life. A little boy called Carl had lost his life and they had a cup called the Carl Bailey Cup. And I first won that trophy in my year four. … So the year fives and sixes were a little bit disgruntled at the year four winning, and then I won it again in year five and again in year six.
Presenter asks
8:29How did your parents explain your [left] hand to you, and how did you feel about it?
Yeah, no one really knows. It may well have been the umbilical cord, it could have been fibrous mesh within the womb. It was just one of those things, and doctors said it might have been this, it might have been that. And we were never really that bothered to know why. It was just something that had happened, and it wasn't holding me back. I was, you know, perfectly happy. There were times where I wondered if I should have a prosthetic, would that make life easier? I'd never be a concert pianist, but I'm not very musical, so that didn't matter. … My grandma … said to my parents, Sarah's fine, just carry on. You know, you don't need to make any special concessions.
Presenter asks
19:07How bad was the bullying at school, and what kind of impact did it have on your self-esteem?
It wasn't great. I mean, I'd be in a cubicle in the toilets and I'd hear them talking about me, who does she think she is, and all sorts of, you know, nasty things … So I just withdrew. I used to try and control it through controlling my diet. … So the disordered eating came out of that desire for control … definitely out of a desire for control to feel as though, well, if they don't like me for being an athlete, they'd … make fun of me for turning up with wet hair at school, a bright pink face from chlorine damage … Just picked on for my appearance, picked on for being different, picked on for never being available to do things.
Presenter asks
30:44How did you come back from chronic fatigue syndrome, and what led you to cycling?
I'd been training on a bike … So I just kept going down to the Velodrome more and more. And at that point, British Cycling had spotted I'd been on the Velodrome. … they asked me if I'd like to do a trial over 3,000 metres. And when I did the trial, the time was a second outside of the world record. … three weeks later, I was at the European Championships, having watched the Tour de France to kind of understand what cycling was about.
“It's a moment where you get goosebumps. … there's a huge sense of relief because you've been building up to that moment of crossing the finish line for such a long time and you've never dared to allow yourself to think about what a podium might look like.”
“I was so determined that I wanted to find out whether this was an option. I was just so set on becoming a British athlete.”
“I just withdrew. I used to try and control it through controlling my diet. … So the disordered eating came out of that desire for control … definitely out of a desire for control to feel as though, well, if they don't like me for being an athlete, they'd … make fun of me for turning up with wet hair at school.”
“She [the GP] took one look at me and said, You could do with a jam sandwich. … She said, If you get this sorted now, you won't have to go through all of that process.”
“London 2012 was a games that everybody marks in the sand, whether it's an athlete that's now competing who'd watched those games and was inspired by it … for the general public to view it in that way [as one games] for the first time was transformational.”