Not a lot of people know me outside of athletics and believe it or not I am actually quite shy. The exhilaration of a win or tears after falling are the extremes. It takes me a while to get to know someone, but once I do I am very loyal to my old friends.

Winning a gold medal is not easy but I believed in myself, especially over the last four years.

I imagine these two girls next to me every time single time I'm going over those hurdles in training.

My goals were last year to win the world champs and this year to win the Olympic Games and I've done that and I couldn't be happier.

Being at school, being who I am, being an athlete, it was hard to find people like me. There's not many athletes that can be at my level. That was kind of hard finding people who love something so much they want to keep on doing it.

It's always, 'Are you the runner girl?' I say, 'My name is Sally actually.' I used to always get that at school as well, 'Are you the runner girl?' I'm not even the runner girl, I'm a hurdler.

Coming over to Europe you can always put on weight really easily because you are not doing your normal routine at home. It is just a bit more discipline and not eating breads and pastas which are my favourite foods in the entire world.