Daley Thompson
Daley Thompson
Francis Morgan Ayodélé "Daley" Thompson, CBE, is an English former decathlete. He won the decathlon gold medal at the Olympic Games in 1980 and 1984, and broke the world record for the event four times...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionDecathlete
Date of Birth30 July 1958
men years black
I did not want to be the best black man of the year; I wanted to be the best man of the year.
kids years people
Kids are starting at such a low base rate in terms of fitness that it's taking them years to catch up to where people like me started from. Every little bit is making it more difficult for kids to succeed on a world stage.
kids years people
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.
years two giving
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.
years doctors long
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.
thinking years would-be
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.
jobs thinking years
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.
regret eight years
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.
bit olympic takes
You can be an Olympic champion in 9.5 secs, but to be the greatest, there's more to it. It takes a bit of forethought and a lot of mental application.
best english-athlete
We live in the best place on earth but at times the worst.
athletes athletics bit expect extent five follow force frankly great indian pick reckon
Frankly I don't follow Indian athletics to a great extent but I do know that it has started to pick up a bit of late. Five years hence, I expect Indian athletes to be a force to reckon with.
school kids two
There were only ever two black kids at my school. I never considered myself to be 'a black kid'. I was who I was. Which isn't to say things haven't happened to me that wouldn't have happened if I wasn't black.
weight shots stadiums
When you're walking into the stadium, you just say to yourself, 'the 100m is the same anywhere, the shot put is the same weight anywhere.'
games community olympics
Even if you've been involved in a World Cup, the Olympics is huge. Only the Games has the power to change communities.