Running taught me valuable lessons. In cross-country competition, training counted more than intrinsic ability, and I could compensate for a lack of natural aptitude with diligence and discipline. I applied this in everything I did.

It is most unusual to return to a place that has changed in ways you yourself have altered.

I know that, throughout the world, there are good men and women concerned with the greatest challenges facing society today - poverty, illiteracy, and disease.

I dream of the realization of the unity of Africa, whereby its leaders combine in their efforts to solve the problems of this continent. I dream of our vast deserts, of our forests, of all our great wildernesses.

I believe that in the end that it is kindness and accommodation that are all the catalysts for real change.

What we did was to try and exploit that spirit [the idea of giving], which was there even before I approached individual South Africans [to give to the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund]. I think we must start from that angle.

Let us give practical recognition to the injustices of the past,by building a future based on equality&social justice