We crave instant success these days. If you are a really good sprinter and long jumper, you don't want to spend two or three years on a whole new set of events. You're used to doing well and it's difficult to give that up.

I've still got a small fitness and conditioning business where I travel round the world doing stuff for individuals and corporations, mainly fitness training.

If you don't want to grow old, then slow down the slowing down process.

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.

For kids it's natural to be competitive.

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.

People don't want to serve apprenticeships any more. Kids expect to be paid and treated really well and all that guff before they've achieved anything. It doesn't work like that. You have to spend five or six years being relatively rubbish and put up with it. For that you don't deserve to be getting lottery money.