If it wasn't for my sport and my father, I'd probably be a fallen statistic. I'd be dead; I'd be in jail. Luckily, I had a great dad in my life.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I think nowadays it's so easy as an athlete to become a statistic whether or not you lose everything or having trouble or whatever it may be.
My dad was a good athlete. My mom had longevity. There were some athletic genes that certainly got passed down.
My father thought sport was something fun - he didn't know it was a way to make money. Then I won a Mercedes at the world championships and I gave it to him. From the moment it arrived my father said: 'Good, you can support not just yourself but me too'.
If I was born again, I would be able to do any sport because I would have time to learn.
I learned a lot from my father. I'm very lucky to have a father who was a professional athlete.
Only one sport can subsume my life at a time.
For many of us, sport has provided the continuity in our lives, the alternative family to the one we left behind. It gives us something to talk about, to preen about, to care about.
There are almost no sports within which mortal accidents are not a reality.
Male athletes don't get dropped when they father kids.
When I was about to break a world record and become well known, my mother used to say that for her the important thing was for me to become a doctor - a career which had not been possible in her generation and in her society. Sport was something to be set aside.