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.

If you hold back in hurdles, you are going to fall over.

I have a huge passion for animals and while retirement is a long way off, when I do I would love to do something with animals.

I never let anything stop me from doing what I want to do.

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.

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.

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.