Daley Thompson Quotes

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Daley Thompson

Profession : Athlete

Birth : July 30, 1958

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

Daley Thompson

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

Daley Thompson

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.'

Daley Thompson

What used to drive me was the fact that I wanted to be better than everybody at something. One of my best qualities is that I used whatever other people found to be an adverse thing to be a positive thing for myself.

Daley Thompson

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.

Daley Thompson

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.

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 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

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.

Daley Thompson

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

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

Daley Thompson

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.

Daley Thompson

I don't even have my own computer.

Daley Thompson

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

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 am an education ambassador, mainly working with schools.

Daley Thompson

Having the ambition of becoming Olympic champion is a whole different ambition from wanting to be the greatest.

Daley Thompson

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.

Daley Thompson

People tend to like an athlete's performance, but if you don't get a feeling for the individual, you're not very emotive about them.

Daley Thompson