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

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

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.

Having the ambition of becoming Olympic champion is a whole different ambition from wanting to be the greatest.

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

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 work hard in real life, people tend to get in your way - either from inertia or prejudice - and they stop you achieving things. It's the worst thing about real life compared with sports, where you generally get what you deserve: if you're the fastest guy, you win; there are no other games being played.