Paralympian Dame Sarah Storey has said mothers do not get “nearly enough credit” for the work they do when it comes to balancing their jobs and personal lives.

The road and track racing cyclist, 38, is Britain’s most successful woman Paralympic athlete.

She won three gold medals at the Rio Games, which brought her total tally to 14, and has explained how she combines her tough training with being a mother of one.

Dame Sarah Storey
Dame Sarah Storey (Andrew Matthews / PA Wire/PA Images)

Storey, whose daughter Louisa was born in 2013, told Hello! magazine her husband Barney “does the lion’s share of the childcare” while she trains, and they are a “team”.

She added: “I don’t think mums get nearly enough credit for the balancing act they do, especially now when we are expected to do everything all the time.

“I’m an athlete mum. But most mums are athletes and they don’t realise. We are all athletes in different ways.”

Dame Sarah Storey
Dame Sarah Storey in Hello! magazine (Hello! magazine)

Storey also admitted her triple gold medal win at the Paralympics earlier this month “hasn’t sunk in yet”, and that she keeps her impressive haul “at a secret location”.

Her husband has won three Paralympic gold medals of his own as a sighted pilot for blind or partially sighted athletes in tandem track cycling events. Storey said: “We don’t have (our medals) on display at home.”

Hello magazine
This week’s Hello! magazine, which is out now (Hello! magazine)

Storey was born without a functioning left hand and said “nobody treated me any differently” when she was growing up.

She added: “Every child has to learn how to walk, play and catch a ball. You might have a different technique but you are still learning the same skills.”

For the full interview, see this week’s Hello! magazine, which is out now.