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" In my heart of hearts my motivation would always have been to be the best, and I think that athletics is probably what I was built for. "

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" For kids it's natural to be competitive. "

" When I lost my decathlon world record I took it like a man. I only cried for ten hours. "

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

" But if kids take up things like hockey and football they will go back to it. "

" Sometimes you have to resist working on your strengths in favour of your weaknesses. The decathlon requires a wide range of skills. "

" Retiring was hard. I'd spent 15 years doing something I loved, but when you get older everything seems to go. When I started spending too long with the physio and the doctor, I knew it was time to call it a day. But I had no preparation for being retired and I didn't know what to do. "

" I did not want to be the best black man of the year; I wanted to be the best man of the year. "

" Los Angeles was great fun because it was the polar opposite of Moscow in 1980. It was sunny and bright, lots of colours around, whereas Moscow was dark and oppressive. "

" Kids have been let down by adults - we've tried to give them too much, we've tried not to impose discipline. We've tried to make their lives easier and, in doing so, we've taken something away from them. Kids like boundaries, they also like to be pushed, need to learn what failure is all about, need guidance. "

" 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. "

" In sport, if you want to be the best you have to compete against the best - I would much rather have come tenth and be judged against everyone than come first and be judged against just a few. "

" Most people doing the decathlon these days are quite boring, so people don't relate to them. "

" There were only ever two black kids at my school. I never considered myself to be 'a black kid'. I was who I was. Which isn't to say things haven't happened to me that wouldn't have happened if I wasn't black. "

" The stopwatch doesn't lie. The tape measure doesn't lie. "

" I think one of the things about being a good coach is to recognise when you have given all that you can. In fact there should be some sort of unspoken law that says that a coach cannot have anyone for three or four years - if you have not passed on most of the stuff you know in that time, then you are not doing a good job. "

" Being a decathlete is like having ten girlfriends. You have to love them all, and you can't afford losing one. "

" What used to drive me was the fact that I wanted to be better than everybody at something. One of my best qualities is that I used whatever other people found to be an adverse thing to be a positive thing for myself. "

" We live in the best place on earth but at times the worst. "

" When you're walking into the stadium, you just say to yourself, 'the 100m is the same anywhere, the shot put is the same weight anywhere.' "

" Sport and health are so important to our nation that they deserve to be right at the front of people's minds. "

" Sport fosters many things that are good; teamwork and leadership. "

" I'm competitive - that's what defines me - and I love it. "

" 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. "

" If you're not in it you can't win it. "