Sophie Unwin storms to time trial silver with pilot Jenny Holl at Paris 2024

By Tom Harle in Clichy-Sous-Bois

Cyclist Sophie Unwin revealed that a good rummage around in the hurt locker was the key to Paralympic silver in the time trial.

The 30-year-old did not have time to hone her craft in racing against the clock on her whirlwind rise from redundancy to the Tokyo Games inside a year, finishing fifth in the time trial.

The Loughborough Lightning pair of Unwin and sighted pilot Jenny Holl have spent the last three years finding their groove on the time trial bike and reaped the rewards with silver at Paris 2024.

Unwin said, who is one of over 1,000 elite athletes on UK Sport’s National Lottery-funded World Class Programme, allowing them to train full time, have access to the world’s best coaches and benefit from pioneering medical support – which has been vital on their pathway to the Paris 2024 Games: “It’s amazing, we weren’t anywhere in Tokyo in the time trial, we weren’t good at them yet. We’ve put a lot of work into them and we knew this would be a tough race.

“It’s really nice to come away with a silver.”

The race took place in an unremarkable north-eastern suburb of Paris, a short ride from where Kylian Mbappe was born.

Unwin and Holl were top of the pile at the 5.8km mark, the first checkpoint, making the most of a flat and speedy section that plunged through Bondy Forest.

They were outstripped by the Irish duo of Katie-George Dunlevy and pilot Linda Kelly who romped to victory by 83 seconds but held silver medal position ahead of team-mates Lora Fachie and Corrine Hall, who won bronze.

The steady improvement has been shown in the results at World Championship level: fourth in 2021 before a leap to gold in 2022 and silver on home soil in Glasgow last year.

“It’s more time riding,” said Unwin. “In Tokyo, I was so new to it and I didn’t know how to pace an effort, I didn’t know how to hurt myself in a time trial and I definitely know how to do that now.”

Holl interjected: “If you see Sophie after a time trial, it’s a sight to see. She can put herself in a box that I’ve never seen anyone be able to. I can’t do it, I’ve never been able to do it.”

Unwin continued: “I think a lot of that is that I don’t want to let Jenny down. Jenny has a much harder job than me on the bike, my job is just to put out power, so I just go, ‘that’s my job, I’ve just got to do that until I can’t anymore.’”

National Lottery players raise more than £30million a week for Good Causes including vital funding into sport – from grassroots to elite. To find out more visit: www.lotterygoodcauses.org.uk