It's a beautiful thing, diving into the cool crisp water and then just sort of being able to pull your body through the water and the water opening up for you.

I can remember crawling through the window where he was in the hospital... He said, 'You have a gift... keep training for me.' I s'pose those were the last words he ever spoke to me.

Make yourself an example, achieve it, but don't hurt anyone on the way up. I don't think I did that.

The Olympics remain the most compelling search for excellence that exists in sport, and maybe in life itself.

I don't linger on the fact that Dawn Fraser was a great swimmer 40 years ago. That was in the past. I did break 41 world records, but I don't live on that today.

I've always believed that the desire must come from within, not as a result of being driven by coaches or parents.

I knew that the stronger that I was, the faster I was going to swim, and thats all I had in my mind at the time, was I wanted to be the best swimmer in the world.