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Born | [1] Poynton, Cheshire, England [2] | 9 February 1996
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Height | 5 ft 5 in (165 cm) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Weight | 60 kg (132 lb) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Current team | Boot Out Breast Cancer | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Discipline | Track | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Role | Stoker | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Rider type | Sprinter | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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SportCity Velo | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Professional team | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Boot Out Breast Cancer | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Sophie Thornhill, MBE (born 9 February 1996) [1] is a visually impaired English former racing cyclist who competed in para-cycling tandem track events. She is a double world champion, with pilot Rachel James, and a double Commonwealth gold medallist, with pilot Helen Scott, in the tandem sprint and 1 km time trial events. In April 2014, she set world records in the tandem sprint and 1 km time trial, piloted by James. She retired from competition in 2020.
Thornhill comes from Poynton near Stockport in Cheshire. She attended Poynton High School, also attended by para-cyclist Sarah Storey, [1] [3] and Loughborough College. [4] She has only 7–9% vision owing to oculocutaneous albinism, which causes visual impairment. [1] [3] She met the para-cyclist Anthony Kappes, also visually impaired, via her uncle; he encouraged her to train as a track cyclist. [1] [3]
Thornhill started racing as an adult in May 2013, aged 17. [1] She raced as the stoker on the back of a tandem, with the front position occupied by a pilot with normal vision. [3] She was initially piloted by English cyclist Helen Scott, with whom she won three British events. [3] In September 2013 she switched to the Welsh cyclist Rachel James as her pilot. [5] Her international debut came with James in December at the International Paracycling Cup in Newport, Wales, where the pair won two gold medals; their time of 1:09.446 in the 1 km time trial missed the world record by 0.73 seconds. [5] [6]
Her first major international competition was the UCI Para-cycling Track World Championships in Aguascalientes, Mexico, in April 2014. [1] [7] [8] Thornhill and James won the gold medal in the tandem 1 km time trial; their time of 1:05.912 broke the world record by a little under 3 seconds. [9] The pair won gold in the sprint, beating the New Zealand pair Emma Foy and Laura Fairweather 2–0 in the semi-final, and the Australian pair Brandie O'Connor and Breanna Hargrave 2–0 in the final. [1] [10] [11] They also broke the world record in the qualifying round of the sprint with a flying start time over 200 metres of 10.854 seconds. [1] [12]
Thornhill was selected for the English team at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland, where para-cycling appeared for the first time; [13] [14] at 18, she was the track cycling team's youngest member.[ citation needed] As James was competing for the Welsh team, Thornhill returned to Scott as her pilot to compete in the tandem sprint and 1 km time trial events. [13] [14] The pair won the gold medal in the sprint, beating the Australian Paralympic champion Felicity Johnson and pilot Holly Takos 2–0 in the semi-final, and the Scottish pair Aileen McGlynn and Louise Haston 2–0 in the final. [15] [16] [17] They set the Commonwealth record during qualification, with a time of 11.277 seconds. [16] [18] The pair also won gold in the 1 km time trial, with a time of 1:08.187, a Commonwealth Games record. [18] [19] [20] They beat silver medallists McGlynn and Haston by more than 1.5 seconds. [19] [20] Sarah Storey commented: "They had a superbly executed start – they have worked so hard on that aspect of their training – and with the turbo intervals they have done they were able to bring it home strongly." [21]
Thornhill reunited with James to compete in the 2014 British National Track Championships in September, where they won the mixed time trial [22] and the 200-metre flying start time trial for blind and visually impaired riders. [23]
At the 2016 Rio Paralympics Thornhill won gold in the 1km time trial B [24] and bronze in the individual pursuit B, [4] on both occasions alongside Helen Scott.
She was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2017 New Year Honours for services to cycling. [25]
In June 2020 Thornhill announced her retirement from competition, after the 2020 Summer Paralympics were delayed by a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. She indicated that she would focus on her educational career, taking up a place to study history at Manchester Metropolitan University in September. [26]