Dame Sarah, how much has the Paralympics changed since you first, uh, as you say, appeared as a 14-year-old?

The Paralympics has changed immeasurably.

I think the thing that hasn't changed is how impressive it is.

It's always been the pinnacle.

It's always been the things, the hardest medals to win.

Um, but what has changed is the number of people who know about it happening.

The coverage that we had in, uh, Barcelona in 1992 was around an hour of TV highlights once every three days, so there really wasn't enough time to go across all the sports and all of the different performances.

Are you confident that America can stage the Paralympics better than the Parisians?

I spoke to her last year before she went to the Paris Games, her ninth Paralympics.

The first games I remember watching is 1984, but what I didn't realize was the Paralympics was a thing because I had never really been given any inkling that, you know, any sport was possible for people who weren't, you know, two arms, two legs, full able-bodied people.

So I looked at the, the Olympic Games and thought, "I wonder if I could go to the Olympics." And it wasn't until around 1990 that I watched, uh, a TV program about a young lady who was hoping to qualify for the Paralympic team in '92, and she was missing part of her arm, and I was born with my left arm shorter than my right, no left hand, not fully formed.

And so I was like, "I wonder whether it counts for people like me." I'd never seen myself as any different to anyone else.

I knew that I just did things a little bit differently sometimes.

But because I was swimming just as quickly if not faster than everybody that I knew, it hadn't really crossed my mind.

Like, when did you notice? How did your parents explain that to you, and how did you feel about it?

Yeah, no one really knows.

But you still did it.

Yeah, I was 15.

And I think, you know, we're talking about all sorts of the pressures and challenges on 15 year olds.

My parents were just genius, I think.

You know, if I wanted to do this, I had to, you know, I had to do it.

It had to be me.

And maybe because I'd been at those games for three weeks and I'd looked after myself.

Do you think if you hadn't have had those sort of early experiences at 14 and everything that happened after that, you would have had the, I don't know, the sort of wherewithal to go, actually, well, we can park this and we can take this on?

And they were talking about their pioneering research into helping female athletes with the menopause.

So, for me, I started out having headaches.

But then also your- your- your menstrual cycle, I think it starts to lengthen and then it shortens, and then it lengthens again, and you're not really sure where you are.

So, I've never been an athlete that's struggled when I was, uh, younger with my menstrual cycle.

But as soon as I noticed some changes, I asked Kirsty, I said, "Why is this happening? Why have I got a headache?" And there'll be a one- one particular day where I thought I'd come down with some kind of horrendous illness.

I- my head was pounding, and I thought, "Well, I- there's no way I'm gonna be able to race tomorrow." Uh, I went out for an easy ride.

The following day, I set a power PB.

Uh, I've got to ask you, are you looking to win more Paralympic gold medals?