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To be an Olympian - not many people can say that. But first of all, I've got to make the team, and I know a lot of hard work is going to go into it, so hopefully it pays off.

That people believe I can be Olympic champ, it just spurs me on.

You learn a lot from your first Olympic Games experience. Everyone thinks they're prepared, but you never are.

The Olympics is about showing what you've done with your life, your dream as an athlete and sharing that with the world.

The advice I will give my children, if and when they have Olympic aspirations, will be to go for it.

People who aren't perhaps that into sport are going to be following me and wanting to be part of the Olympics. That definitely does bring added pressure but as an athlete the Olympics are the ultimate competition.

You hit one level of the sport, and then you want to get to the next level. Until, eventually, the Olympics becomes part of that dream, part of that goal set and the mindset of wanting to get there. And then you realize there's so much incredible hard work and determination and effort that you need to put in along the way.

I am Olympic champion for life, and I have learned to enjoy what that means.

Maybe there's a little girl who thinks she can be an Olympic athlete, and she sees all the things I struggled through to get here. Yeah, I didn't walk away with a medal or run away with a medal, but I think there's lessons to be learned when you win and lessons to be learned when you lose.

People think the gold medal is yours and they say you're going to win - but they have no idea how hard it is. People aren't doing it negatively - they're mostly lovely and they really do want you to win - but they don't understand the difficulty and intensity of competition.