Sophie Unwin revels in UCI Cycling World Championships glory and admits ‘I had no intention of becoming an athlete’

The Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome is quite a different environment to where Sophie Unwin found herself six years ago.

Small mammals, reptiles, insects and birds were who she spent her days with working at Longleat Safari Park and the Devon-born Paralympian and world champion had never even heard of para-cycling.

The 29-year-old was roared home alongside pilot and Scot Jenny Holl in front of a Glaswegian crowd at the UCI World Championships this month, the largest event in the sport’s history, combining 13 cycling disciplines across 10 days.

Unwin and Holl claimed three golds on the track, and a silver and bronze on the road, and they maintained that hosting para-cycling with able-bodied disciplines made all the difference.

“In 2017, I hadn’t heard of para-cycling,” Unwin said. “I don’t think I’d have known what a tandem was. I was still working in a zoo and had no intention of becoming an athlete, I didn’t know any of that was out there.

“If someone had said that I’d be a world champion, I’d have said, ‘first of all, what’s a velodrome? What’s a tandem? What are you talking about?’

“For us I think the experience was great being mixed in with the able-bodied Worlds as well, especially on the track.

“It was really nice because a lot of the able-bodied athletes haven’t had a lot of exposure to Para racing and we’ve had a lot of feedback saying this is amazing and we’ve never really watched Para racing before and it’s incredible.

“We got the kind of crowds that Para Worlds don’t normally get and that environment was just so enjoyable to be a part of.”

Unwin and Holl became a pair in 2021 after Unwin, who is partially sighted due to Stargardt disease, was scouted at a Great Britain talent-ID session in August 2020.

They quickly rose to prominence, winning a World Championships title and a Tokyo 2020 Paralympic silver while still learning the ropes on the tandem.

The duo are now not only consistently successful in their events but have a confidence to their racing that they believe can take them all the way to the podium at Paris 2024.

Holl said: “The results we got in Glasgow and hopefully a year to go until Paris we will keep proving that we’ve got the confidence that we can get these results.

“Everyone staying together as a team this year, you can really feed off everyone’s success as a whole British Cycling squad.

“You’ve got people winning medals every single day, you’re sat there having your dinner and people are walking in with jerseys and medals and cows.

“As a para-cycling squad too, we all get on so well, there’s not anyone who isn’t a member of the team.

“We’re both going to do a lot of winter training next, we don’t have any racing now until March, which is going to be the next track Worlds.

“We’ll reflect on the Worlds this year and what we did right and got us those results and where we can improve to get those results next year.”