Sebastian Coe Quotes

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Sebastian Coe

Profession : Politician

Birth : September 29, 1956

I've never sent an email in my life. My kids laugh. I often hand the phone to them and say, 'Can you text this message to somebody.' I don't even have a computer on my desk.

Sebastian Coe

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

Sebastian Coe

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.

Sebastian Coe

The biggest fragility in a project is often just the inability to be able to explain to people why you are doing it, and when you're going to do it, and what's going to happen.

Sebastian Coe

When I moved to Sheffield and went to a secondary modern in the Seventies, there were certain challenges: if you've got a name like Sebastian, you either learn to fight or to run.

Sebastian Coe

I'm such an odd mix of things. My grandfather was Indian: I've got more family living in India than I do in the U.K. My old man was East London. I was brought up in Yorkshire. My great-grandfather was Irish.

Sebastian Coe

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.

Sebastian Coe

There's a difference between hurting when you lose and being a bad loser. You don't compete at the highest level of sport to feel comfortable about losing, but you behave in a civil way when it goes wrong because that is the flip side.

Sebastian Coe

Football was not what I was put on this planet to do.

Sebastian Coe

Getting the Games for London has been the fulfilment of a dream. It is one which I truly believe can change the lives of hundreds of thousands of young people for the better. But in the end, nothing can quite compare with winning your first Olympic gold medal.

Sebastian Coe

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.

Sebastian Coe

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

Sebastian Coe

I had a very ordinary background in Sheffield; I went to a secondary modern, but I saw something on TV in 1968 that inspired me to join an athletics club, and 12 years later, with great coaching and the support of people who loved me a lot, I ended up at an Olympic Games.

Sebastian Coe

Some people found it difficult to understand my relationship with my father, but that may have been because they couldn't get beyond their relationship with their own parents.

Sebastian Coe

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

Sebastian Coe

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

Sebastian Coe

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

Sebastian Coe

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.

Sebastian Coe

Nobody ever becomes an expert parent. But I think good parenting is about consistency. It's about being there at big moments, but it's also just the consistency of decision making. And it's routine.

Sebastian Coe

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

Sebastian Coe