Sebastian Coe Quotes & Sayings (Page 3)

“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.”

“At university level, I had an economics lecturer who used to joke that I was the only student who handed in essays on British Airways notepaper.”

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

“The London Games will be designed for the athletes and we will provide them with the very best venues and the very best conditions to pursue their sporting dreams in London.”

“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.”

“I wouldn't have raced a horse. But you'll then throw back at me that Jesse Owens raced against a horse, and he's one of my heroes, so I'm not going to say it was a silly stunt. I know too much about horses. They're highly unreliable, and they've got brains the size of golf balls.”

“My overwhelming concern will always be the well-being of the athletes. In Olympic sport, it is rare for competitors not to devote half their young life to this. Their families will have given up all sorts of things to allow them to do that.”

“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.”

“The characteristic shared by people at the top of their profession is that, to get better, they crave criticism. Most people don't like criticism, but if you are trying to shave two tenths of a second at 800 metres, that is what you crave.”

“I'm not sure there are enough coaches in the system that can take young talent and consistently get them into the top five in the world.”