Quotes from Sebastian Coe

Inspirational leaders need to have a winning mentality in order to inspire respect. It is hard to trust in the leadership of someone who is half-hearted about their purpose, or only sporadic in focus or enthusiasm.

I've never sent an email in my life. My kids laugh. I often hand the phone to them and say, 'Can you text this message to somebody.' I don't even have a computer on my desk.

The Olympics are a world apart from racing for a record. You put out of your mind pretty much what anyone else doing in the race.

Ask me what makes a champion runner, and I will tell you it helps to have the great good sense to choose your parents carefully.

Since the break-up of the 1990s, Russia has not had winter sports facilities. All the winter sport venues were effectively located in countries that are no longer part of the federation. There is a strong argument for saying Sochi's legacy will be this country will have winter sports facilities it did not have before.

I actually don't believe in big government, and half the time I'm never quite sure I believe in government, generally.

My motivation to compete was always about improving one year to the next. At 34, I realised I'd never run any quicker, so why hang on? But I love running and still run along woodland trails and beaches every few days.

It is really important that we promote competitive support in schools. It is very important that we recognise that has to be underpinned by good quality physical education and by getting people into patterns of exercise.

We have to recognise there are very few countries you will take the Games to where somebody doesn't have issues on foreign or domestic policy.

I've always referred to my father as 'my coach' because we were always able to separate our relationship into the roles of coach and parent.

I know many people who are actually queasy about the idea that their kids may harbour sporting ambitions.

I don't think I am a workaholic. I prefer to keep busy. It is better than the alternative.

You hope all good athletes run on the balls of their feet. You don't want them coming down heel first. The perfect style is the foot to come down with a slight supination and on a tilt to the outside.

World records are only borrowed.

Blink and you miss a sprint. The 10,000 meters is lap after lap of waiting. Theatrically, the mile is just the right length - beginning, middle, end: a story unfolding.

The London Games will be designed for the athletes and we will provide them with the very best venues and the very best conditions to pursue their sporting dreams in London.

There's a difference between hurting when you lose and being a bad loser. You don't compete at the highest level of sport to feel comfortable about losing, but you behave in a civil way when it goes wrong because that is the flip side.

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.

The biggest fragility in a project is often just the inability to be able to explain to people why you are doing it, and when you're going to do it, and what's going to happen.

My mother was Indian, brought up in Delhi. My grandparents were born in Bow and Poplar.

I started track and field when I was 12 and didn't get to an Olympic Games until I was nearly 23. By any stretch of the imagination that's a very long apprenticeship.

Good running is the ability to have a very well defined on-board computer. The ability to judge distances when running in traffic.

Our success in Singapore was a Herculean effort by the whole team. Now I am determined to deliver on all we promised. I will be watching like a hawk.

I can remember the day I decided I would retire from competitive athletics as vividly as if it were yesterday.