91Èȱ¬

Believe in yourself

I did all kinds of sport at school but I focused mainly on my studies. Sport was for fun and I took academics seriously. I did my O-levels, A-levels and went to university. I was always held back by the fact that I was very small, I was called 'titch' at school! Maybe with athletics the size thing was less of an issue.

I won the English schools triple jump even though I wasn't that good. I went and studied physics at university, and it was my dad who pushed me, I think he had this idea that I could be a bit better than maybe I believed I could be.

I represented the Amateur Athletics Association (AAA) at Loughborough in my last year at university and I took part in the World Student Games in Zagreb in 1987, where I finished 9th.

Never say never

I went to university to get a proper degree to get a job and I remember filling in application forms to work for banks. I didn't really know what I wanted to do, and then my father pushed me and said "Look, you should give athletics a go".

I moved to Newcastle, without a job or anywhere to live, just a room in a friend's house.Karl Johnson was coaching me and I thought 'Well we'll see what happens.'

I ended up working in a hospital in genetics, doing chromosome analysis, through the day and training in the evening. Looking back now - I was mad!

When I left university I jumped 16.35m in some small meeting in Derby, and at that stage the World Junior record was 17.50m. It was a different league. You wouldn't have picked me out as a potential Olympic champion or World Record holder at that stage I don't think.

Don't underestimate the hard work involved

I'd done no training really for the 1988 Seoul Olympics. I mean I hadn't trained at school and only did the odd bit of training at university. I got by on natural talent. I've got a letter from Karl Johnson saying 'Unless you buck your ideas up you're wasting my time and your talent.' I think at that stage I didn't understand it wasn't enough to just be talented, you had to work very, very hard indeed.

I remember a newspaper article quoting Frank Dick, my old national coach, saying it takes 5% talent and 95% hard work, and I thought 'Well the guy's an idiot, he clearly doesn't know what he's talking about.' But I didn't appreciate then just how much hard work I would need to put in. I think the Seoul Olympics helped me to understand the fact that if I was going to make the Barcelona Olympics in four years' time, then something had to change because I just wasn't in the same league as these other guys.

Less can be more

I'd had 1993 which was my big break-through and I thought 'I'm just going to go hell for leather in 1994 and do even better again.' But I had a bit of a virus and I think I over-trained through it. I ended up running myself right down so had nothing in the tank in 1994. That was one of the lowest points in my career.

I understood that actually my physiology is quite fragile and for me less is more, rather than the other way round. So I started to jump well in training, but I never imagined that I would do what I did when I jumped 17.58m to break the British record first meeting out in Loughborough.

Have confidence - believe in yourself

I think I've always been an athlete who produces his best in a championship where it matters the most. You've got to wait for that moment and, scared as I used to get with all sorts of negative scenarios going through my mind, I came to understand that when I stood on the runway in a championship that was when I was going to do it for the most part.

You have your bad days, but I had confidence in my ability, deep down beneath all of that insecurity I have. I can jump when it matters. So it's that kind of excitement as well as fear mingled in together.

Fear is the greatest motivator

If you look back on the footage (of when I broke the World Record in Gothenburg in 1995 with my first jump) you can see I've got a big smile on my face. It's interesting because as my career progressed I became known for not doing very many jumps, basically once I'd got one out and won a competition that was it, I'd done what I needed to do. Fear is the greatest motivator, and I think the second round was certainly that. There was a sense of celebration and of enjoying this, and there's a grin on my face. Not that I didn't go for the first one, but there was a lack of inhibition that had been in the first one, a lack of tension.

Success is for life

I think I appreciate it more now that I've retired than I did at the time, I think at the time I couldn't get my head round it at all. I think it's something to do with the nature of the beast, you're always looking forward to the next challenge. In the end a World Record is only for your personal best, and so you're looking to go beyond that.

But now I've retired, I get much more of a buzz from it. I feel very proud in a positive way about what happened in Gothenberg, and about my achievements.

The thing that kept me going through my career was a sense of purpose, the question 'Why do I do what I do?' - and I had a very clear answer to that.

The philosopher Nietzsche says "He who has a reason why, can endure almost any how." So you can put yourself through whatever you need to to get the job done because you have a reason why you do it.

For me the thing that I understood throughout my career is the questions you ask yourself, most importantly being 'Why are you doing what you are doing?' If you can come up with a good answer to that, then that will sustain you.