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.

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

I didn't even know what it was when I started. But I was lucky. I found it at 16. Most people don't discover decathlon until they're 21 or 22.

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

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.

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.

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.