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 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.

[Overhearing this, the former head of the International Olympic Committee, Juan Antonio Samaranch, replied,] Who was that, Coe? ... Since he got the Games, he's been making friends with everyone.

I started track and field when I was 12 and didn't get to an Olympic Games until I was nearly 23. By any stretch of the imagination that's a very long apprenticeship.

Getting the Games for London has been the fulfilment of a dream. It is one which I truly believe can change the lives of hundreds of thousands of young people for the better. But in the end, nothing can quite compare with winning your first Olympic gold medal.

All pressure is self-inflicted. It's what you make of it or how you let it rub off on you.