Quotes from Daley Thompson

Even if you've been involved in a World Cup, the Olympics is huge. Only the Games has the power to change communities.

I tend to eat vegetables only when I'm with the kids and the rest of the time, I'm a bit slack. But, I am weight-conscious, so I concentrate on avoiding junk food.

Most people doing the decathlon these days are quite boring, so people don't relate to them.

We live in the best place on earth but at times the worst.

If you work hard in real life, people tend to get in your way - either from inertia or prejudice - and they stop you achieving things. It's the worst thing about real life compared with sports, where you generally get what you deserve: if you're the fastest guy, you win; there are no other games being played.

It's good to be difficult to know. Too many people are too easy to know.

I'm competitive - that's what defines me - and I love it.

Being a decathlete is like having ten girlfriends. You have to love them all, and you can't afford losing one.

I was in the doldrums for a while after my athletics career ended in 1992. I spent six to eight hours a day training, for 18 years, and it took a long time to get over the regret that I wasn't competing in major championships any more. All I ever wanted to be was the best. But I find new projects and I keep things in perspective.

Ever since I was a kid, whatever situation I was presented with, I always made the most of it.

People don't want to serve apprenticeships any more. Kids expect to be paid and treated really well and all that guff before they've achieved anything. It doesn't work like that. You have to spend five or six years being relatively rubbish and put up with it. For that you don't deserve to be getting lottery money.

Kids have been let down by adults - we've tried to give them too much, we've tried not to impose discipline. We've tried to make their lives easier and, in doing so, we've taken something away from them. Kids like boundaries, they also like to be pushed, need to learn what failure is all about, need guidance.

Athletes these days are too robotic. People like to see performances filled with emotion. In my career I tried to be amusing, to differentiate myself from the other champions.

I'm obsessive. I want to know the answer to how good I am. Most people aren't.

The decathlon takes so long to learn that people who are good athletes don't want to go back to the beginning again.

In my heart of hearts my motivation would always have been to be the best, and I think that athletics is probably what I was built for.

We crave instant success these days. If you are a really good sprinter and long jumper, you don't want to spend two or three years on a whole new set of events. You're used to doing well and it's difficult to give that up.

When I lost my decathlon world record I took it like a man. I only cried for ten hours.

Retiring was hard. I'd spent 15 years doing something I loved, but when you get older everything seems to go. When I started spending too long with the physio and the doctor, I knew it was time to call it a day. But I had no preparation for being retired and I didn't know what to do.

I think one of the things about being a good coach is to recognise when you have given all that you can. In fact there should be some sort of unspoken law that says that a coach cannot have anyone for three or four years - if you have not passed on most of the stuff you know in that time, then you are not doing a good job.

There's no day when I don't think it would be great to be 25 years old and have the Olympics coming in less than 300 days - and be the best in the world. I can't think of anything so motivating.

I've still got a small fitness and conditioning business where I travel round the world doing stuff for individuals and corporations, mainly fitness training.

I don't even have my own computer.

Sport fosters many things that are good teamwork and leadership.