Sebastian Coe Great Quotations

The great thing about athletics is that it's like poker sometimes: you know what's in your hand, and it may be a load of rubbish, but you've got to keep up the front.

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.

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.

During my first Olympics in 1980, at the age of 23, I was physically in great condition but mentally too inexperienced to cope comfortably in the pressure cooker of an Olympic year.

I am particularly delighted that so many of the members of the evaluation commission are on this team. They already have a great insight about our plans, aspirations and visions.