Nobody has milked one performance better than me - and I'm damned proud of it.

I spent twelve years training for a career that was over in a week. Joe Namath spent one week training for a career that lasted twelve years.

There was a French activist and writer, Simone de Beauvoir, who said, 'You are not born woman. You become one' ... Words I live by.

First of all, I try to be a positive role model.

I was afraid the teacher was going to make me read in front of class and I was going to look bad. [But] if I wasn't dyslexic, I probably wouldn't have won the Games. If I had been a better reader, then that would have come easily, sports would have come easily. And I never would have realized that the way you get ahead in life is hard work.

I am not gay. I am, as far as I know, heterosexual. I've never been with a guy.

The most challenging aspect of the decathlon is not the events themselves, but how you train to become the best 100-meter runner you are on the same day that you're the best 1,500-meter runner.