World records are only borrowed.

Marathons don't come to you overnight.

We need to be confident. We need not to blink.

Charlie Parker was a genius, as was Lester Young.

The Paralympians have lifted the cloud of limitation.

I don't want to go back into politics - absolutely not.

Tomorrow is another day, and there will be another battle!

This is not going to be business as usual. This is business unusual

The Americans sowed the seed, and now they have reaped the whirlwind

I've always felt that long, slow distance produces long, slow runners.

I still run every other day. Longer at weekends. I probably do 35 miles a week.

The nine inches right here; set it straight and you can beat anybody in the world.

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

All pressure is self-inflicted. It's what you make of it or how you let it rub off on you.

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

I started daily training at the age of 14. When I was 16 years old, I was running twice a day.

I'm probably one of the few people who can say I did all three types of state sector schooling.

I joined the local athletics club when I was 12, that's what I did. I did it of my own volition.

I will go to my grave believing that participation is best driven by the well-stocked shop window.

Interviewing Hugh McIlvanney, I got to read lots of his stuff again. I'm a big fan of his writing.

Everybody recognises that giving young people competitive outlet through sport is a very good thing.

Sport is a universal language, building more bridges between people than anything else I can think of.

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

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

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

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

Sacrifice is going to war for your country. Sacrifice is a brave young man being blown up by a landmine in Afghanistan.

I became a great runner because if you're a kid in Leeds and your name is Sebastian you've got to become a great runner.

Quite simply the Games are the biggest opportunity sport in this country has ever had. It is one that we must not squander.

There is nothing so marginal as a party that has been in power for 18 years and slides into opposition. You influence nothing.

There may be problems we still need to tease out, but we will leave no stone unturned in our bid to make London the host city.

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.

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.

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

I might have to consider coaching- I'm getting too old to be a world class runner and my mind isn't gone enough to become an official.

I'm a Chelsea season-ticket holder, and I've supported them for 37 years, so any judgment of Manchester United by me is seen as biased.

Im not sure there are enough coaches in the system that can take young talent and consistently get them into the top five in the world.

I'm not sure there are enough coaches in the system that can take young talent and consistently get them into the top five in the world.

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.

In 1981, I spoke at the Olympic Congress. I was scandalised that I was the first athlete to be given that chance. But I made the most of it.

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.

At university level, I had an economics lecturer who used to joke that I was the only student who handed in essays on British Airways notepaper.

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.

Competing is exciting and winning is exhilarating, but the true prize will always be the self-knowledge and understanding that you have gained along the way.

I have always been very good at being able to structure my time. My mother had a huge influence on me. My dad was my coach. He was a hugely influential figure.

I think I'm probably just an old-fashioned Tory. I don't wake up each morning trying to figure out what kind of Conservative I am; for me it's quite instinctive.

The great thing about athletics is that it's like poker sometimes: you know what's in your hand, and it may be a load of rubbish, but you've got to keep up the front.

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.

I can be a bit impatient sometimes. If I'm really focusing on something, I can expect everybody to move at the same pace, and that's probably not massively endearing.

In all Games, there is always a tendency, particularly in the lead up to the Games when there isn't much sport to talk about, to write about things that are not sport.

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