"VAN" (Sports Desk - 18.07.2026) :: Medal legend Sarah Storey has praised Glasgow 2026 for saving the Commonwealth Games and backed the city to put on a spectacular festival of sport.
The Paralympic legend retired from competitive action last week aged 48. She won 16 medals including five golds in four games as a swimmer, then switched to cycling where she claimed 14 Paralympic cycling golds.
Storey is at Glasgow 2026 as a presenter and expert for the Games’ broadcast partner TNT Sports, who are providing 600 hours of live coverage. Every event of the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games is exclusively live across TNT Sports and HBO Max.
Glasgow stepped in to host the Commonwealth games after Victoria, Australia withdrew. Around 3,000 athletes from 74 nations and territories head to Scotland to compete in ten sports between 23 July and 2 August.
Storey is convinced Team Scotland are ready to claim medals and thrill the venues with home nation advantage.
Storey said: “I don’t think we can underestimate just how important Glasgow 2026 stepping in was. The Commonwealth Games has enabled so many athletes to further their careers. Multisport events in this sort of environment are really few and far between, in fact they’re once every four years otherwise.
“So to be able to come into the Commonwealth Games two years after, and two years out from the next Olympic or Paralympic Games, provides a chance for athletes not just to see where they’re at, for the elite and for the younger athletes who perhaps haven’t experienced what it’s like.
“It’s an incredible opportunity for everybody who lives and works in Glasgow or who runs a business in Glasgow. The city will be alive with people for the next couple of weeks as athletes start to arrive, as teams from overseas start to arrive, and that just provides an incredible opportunity from a city’s prosperity perspective.
“And also for people to showcase the city in all of its glory, and all of the things that make Glasgow fantastic. It’s not just the sporting events people will come to see – they’ll come and look at the history and the culture and the arts there, and it really encompasses the entire population of Glasgow.
“If you want to be involved in it, there’s an opportunity for you to be there, and I think that’s what makes it so special to host such a big event. It brings the eyes of the Commonwealth, and further afield, onto the city and people may think, oh yeah, I remember Glasgow as a city that hosted and make sure that they put it on their list of places to visit in the future too.”
The Scottish crowds have a history of generating a noisy atmosphere. Storey benefited from home crowd support at London 2012 and said: “It’s a huge thrill. Team Scotland will love it. Having competed in my hometown, in Manchester in 2002, I know what it feels like. It’s an incredible opportunity to have more people that you care about be there. But also, those people who you don’t know who are volunteers, who are local people coming together to showcase their own city and have that pride.
“Once you look back and reflect and when you finish your events, being able to have all of those people right there, celebrating with you, is really incredibly special.
“Also you’re rubbing shoulders alongside some of the biggest icons in sport.”
Asked which athlete she is looking forward to seeing as a fan, Storey said: “I think across the home nations we’ve got some incredible talent – Team Wales has got some incredible talent and is sort of vying to be the top spot across the UK athletes. I’m particularly excited to see one of my long-time friends and teammates, Ciara Oliva, come back into the Welsh line-up, she’s competed in the Commonwealth Games on two other occasions but she’s coming back specifically this time after having three children. She was a physio for the Para fencing team in Paris in 2024, and just over one year ago almost to the same week she announced that she was going to try and make that Welsh team for a third time. So, I’m excited to see how mum power fares in the velodrome.”
If she was buying a ticket, which sport would she pick? Storey added: “I think I would probably go somewhere between the gymnastics, the swimming and the cycling, if I had to just pick, to narrow it down.
“I think being able to see those tumbles live is just quite insane. But also, when you get to see the cycling team pursuit, or the individual pursuit, those hunting events on the velodrome, they’re really special and of course we’ve got some iconic swimmers going to be competing in the swimming pool to talk about so that would be one not to miss as well.”
Glasgow 2026 is the largest sporting event in the UK this year, with 3,000 athletes from 74 nations and territories set to compete in 10 sports and six Para sports, in four iconic venues across the city.
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