Daley Thompson quotes - page 2

Daley Thompson is a British former decathlete and one of the world's greatest athletics champions. For much of the 1980s, he dominated the decathlon, winning two Olympic gold medals and setting multiple world records. He is celebrated for his exceptional athleticism and charismatic personality. Here are 43 of his quotes:

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.

Daley Thompson

I am only about winning and getting better.

Daley Thompson

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

Daley Thompson

I did not want to be the best black man of the year; I wanted to be the best man of the year.

Daley Thompson

I wouldn't swap the era I competed in for anything, not a day of it. I started out as an amateur, and people like myself, Seb Coe, Steve Ovett, Steve Cram, Tessa Sanderson and the rest did it for the glory of winning medals for our country.

Daley Thompson

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

Daley Thompson

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

Daley Thompson

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

Daley Thompson

I don't even have my own computer.

Daley Thompson

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.

Daley Thompson

I have the mentality of a winner. I first went to the Olympic Games when I was 17, three weeks after my O-levels, and I remember sitting in a dining-hall filled with the world's best athletes.

Daley Thompson

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.

Daley Thompson

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.

Daley Thompson

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.

Daley Thompson

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.

Daley Thompson

There are lots of women tennis players, for instance, but because not many of them seem to have much personality, they're interchangeable. You don't have a feeling about them.

Daley Thompson