LYNN DAVIES

There are hurdles to overcome in sport and in life. Sport is a very valuable learning ground for how to live your life in the best possible way.

You've got to be a disciplined person if you want to succeed both in sport and in life.

If you have a coach helping you, developing your skills alongside you, that's when you're on your way to becoming not just a participant but achieving.

Sport and life is about losing. It's about understanding how to lose.

As a youngster, I enjoyed sport and my ambition was to be a great sportsman.

It's about lessons for life. It's not just about winning either.

It's perseverance that's the key. It's persevering for long enough to achieve your potential.

It's not just about a coach telling you what to do and just following it unthinkingly.

It's about somebody initially knowing more about it than you do but eventually you learn a lot about it yourself and practise the skills and techniques that you've been taught.

You've got to be actively involved in the process yourself and you've got to listen carefully to what the coach is saying, take that on board yourself and implement what the coach is saying.

When you win an Olympic gold, it is such a powerful feeling that stays with you for the rest of your life.

Long jumping sounds simple - you run fast and jump well. But it is about getting all the technical bits right.

I've been involved in sport right through my life.

There are a lot of kids coming in to athletics, but there is also a big drop-out rate. We've got it right at the top end, but we have to maintain the base of the pyramid.

We must have PE teachers and coaches who are well trained and qualified.

I had jumped about 6.40 metres with no training, no run-up, and certainly no skill, when this big, good-looking guy came up to me and told me I could be great.

If athletes are found to have taken performance enhancing drugs, then they should be banned for two years, even if they are British.

Belief is such an important aspect of sport.

One of our targets as a country is to now work very closely with the Commonwealth countries - they could become a very big market for us.

Dai Greene will be our greatest-ever Welsh athlete.

The IOC are the guardians of the Olympic ideal.

To win an Olympic title when there are 205 nations taking part, you have to be super-human. You have to be superman.

I still do cardiovascular exercises, aerobic exercises, and then strength training, as it's important to keep your muscle strength, as every decade you lose about 10% of this.

We're focusing on producing top, great athletes for the Olympics.

The important thing for the future is that our schools and clubs have more and better coaches and teachers to ensure that all that enthusiasm, spirit and talent is harnessed and developed.