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

Athletes these days are too robotic. People like to see performances filled with emotion. In my career I tried to be amusing, to differentiate myself from the other champions.

The decathlon takes so long to learn that people who are good athletes don't want to go back to the beginning again.

There's no day when I don't think it would be great to be 25 years old and have the Olympics coming in less than 300 days - and be the best in the world. I can't think of anything so motivating.

I'm obsessive. I want to know the answer to how good I am. Most people aren't.

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