Throughout the years, Mancunians have excelled in sport, often reaching the pinnacle of their disciplines domestically and internationally.
Right or wrong, Manchester’s male sporting heroes like Michael Atherton, Ricky Hatton, and more recently, Marcus Rashford and Phil Foden always receive more attention than their female counterparts.
While Manchester’s male sports achievers have traditionally received more public acclaim, we should never forget the women who’ve carved their names in the sporting trees sprouting out of Manchester’s rich earth.
In this brief, we will acknowledge three females from different sporting disciplines.
Despite her claims that she’s nobody special, Georgia Taylor-Brown certainly is.
She’s Great Britain’s most successful female Olympic triathlete, after all.
Taylor-Brown was born in Manchester 29 years ago and started swimming at age five.
After finding out she could run too, she began focusing on triathlon with impressive results.
Georgia Taylor-Brown won the silver medal in the delayed 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics Women’s Triathlon event and followed it with the gold medal in the Triathlon Mixed Relay a few days later.
She followed her Olympic achievements by winning the 2021 Super League Triathlon Championship series.
In 2022, Taylor-Brown also won the overall 2022 Season Triathlon Championship title.
Another Manchester woman internationally excelling in her chosen sporting discipline is 27-year-old Charlotte Worthington.
Like Taylor-Brown, Worthington was awarded an MBE at a young age for her sporting achievements. In Worthington’s case, this came for her services to Freestyle BMX cycling.
After Freestyle BMX became an Olympic Sport in 2017, Charlotte Worthington won the sport’s inaugural British and European titles.
She then competed in the UCI Urban Cycling World Championships in Chengdu, China, becoming the first British woman to win a world medal in the discipline.
More was still to come, as Worthington won the gold medal in the Cycling BMX Freestyle Park final at the 2020 Olympics.
Although Triathlon and Freestyle BMX aren’t household disciplines, they are both Olympic sports and feature among betting markets in the UK’s top betting sites not on GamStop, found in this guide.
So, with Georgia Taylor-Brown and Charlotte Worthington likely to appear at the 2024 Paris Olympics, Mancunians keen on wagering on them will be able to do so.
The next woman from Manchester to do the city proud has been at the top of her sporting discipline for many years.
Dame Sarah Storey (nee Bailey) is Britain’s most decorated and successful Paralympic athlete, winning 28 medals, including 17 golds, in her renowned career.
Now 46, she’ll attempt to add to her medal tally in Paris this year if she qualifies.
Storey was born with an underdeveloped left arm, but her disability didn’t quell her desire to reach the top in her chosen disciplines.
Originally, she competed as a swimmer in the 1992 Barcelona Paralympic Games and, aged only 14, won two gold medals and four others in the pool.
After several further Para-swimming successes, she appeared in the 2008 Beijing Paralympics in a different discipline – as a Para-cyclist.
Sarah Storey won the gold medal in the Individual Pursuit in Beijing in a time that would have been good enough for eighth position in the Olympic Games final that year.
She has become a household name in Para-cycling since, receiving several honours during her time on the bike.
Storey has an MBE, OBE, and most recently, the DBE for her services to Para-cycling.
Dame Sarah Storey was nominated for the 2008 Laureus World Sportswoman of the Year with a Disability and also made the final list for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year in 2012.
Although we’ve only covered three of Manchester’s top women in sport here, many more have excelled throughout the years.
Karen Barber, Vicky Botwright, Jade Clarke, Diane Modahl, Jenny Meadows and Marie Purvis are only a few others deserving of mention.
Image credit: Luke Power
