The decathlon takes so long to learn that people who are good athletes don’t want to go back to the beginning again.

Even if you’ve been involved in a World Cup, the Olympics is huge. Only the Games has the power to change communities.

I’m obsessive. I want to know the answer to how good I am. Most people aren’t.

Kids are starting at such a low base rate in terms of fitness that it’s taking them years to catch up to where people like me started from. Every little bit is making it more difficult for kids to succeed on a world stage.

It’s good to be difficult to know. Too many people are too easy to know.

For kids it’s natural to be competitive.

You can be an Olympic champion in 9.5 secs, but to be the greatest, there’s more to it. It takes a bit of forethought and a lot of mental application.

There are lots of women tennis players, for instance, but because not many of them seem to have much personality, they’re interchangeable. You don’t have a feeling about them.

People tend to like an athlete’s performance, but if you don’t get a feeling for the individual, you’re not very emotive about them.

I have the mentality of a winner. I first went to the Olympic Games when I was 17, three weeks after my O-levels, and I remember sitting in a dining-hall filled with the world’s best athletes.