I believed that we had to answer the question: Why are we doing this? And it wasn’t until we started to articulate, internally as an organisation, that it was about using the Games to inspire young people to participate in sports that we each understood what we had to do.

Nobody ever becomes an expert parent. But I think good parenting is about consistency. Its about being there at big moments, but its also just the consistency of decision making. And its routine.

To anyone who has started out on a long campaign believing that the gold medal was destined for him, the feeling when, all of a sudden, the medal has gone somewhere else is quite indescribable.

Throughout my athletic career, the overall goal was always to be a better athlete than I was at the moment – whether next week, next month or next year. The improvement was the goal. The medal was simply the ultimate reward for achieving that goal.

If you lived in Sheffield and were called Sebastian, you had to learn to run fast at a very early stage.

Vision is a romantic thing. We have got into 'talent identification'. I am much more interested in passion - finding people who are really excited about doing something.

I wouldn't have raced a horse. But you'll then throw back at me that Jesse Owens raced against a horse and he's one of my heroes so I'm not going to say it was a silly stunt. I know too much about horses. They're highly unreliable and they've got brains the size of golf balls.