What were your highlights of the World Athletics Championships in Berlin?

It’s difficult to pull out specific highlights because as a whole Team GB did really well. Jessica Ennis, as a heptathlete is obviously my favoured person for the Championship as I like to see that form of event in good hands and Jess looks like a very, very healthy prospect for 2012. She competed superbly so it was really pleasing to see her.

Another of my favourites was Jenny Meadows gaining her bronze. Generally, the ladies had a very good Championship.

Is it too early to base our 2012 hopes on the results from Berlin?

As you step back as a competitor and watch the sport develop and grow, you realise that there are natural ebbs and flows of performance. Who would have thought 12 months ago, after Beijing, that the team would do quite so well?

The people that medalled at Berlin were the ones that had a lot to prove – Jenny Meadows came back from injury, having suffered funding cuts, to really prove herself; Jess, as we know, had a bad foot and desperately wanted to be there; Phillip Sodowu, having been disappointed with his silver last year, arrived in Berlin and performed out of his skin. Basically, the athletes in Berlin were hungry for victory, and that was reflected in those who medalled.

So the next three years are likely to have ups and downs, twists and turns but I think when we enter in 2012, the competing athletes will be so inspired and moved that the ones that are able to utilise that sort of pressure will probably do very well from it.

How do we remain consistent, making sure out 2012 hopefuls don’t peak too early?

Well it depends from what angle your talking really – who that ‘we’ is. In short, everyone has a role to play in making sport their top agenda and profiling it in the right way. From a corporate view, major sponsors of the Games – British Airways very much included – have a major role to play in the development of British talent coming through.

They need to help ensure that the potential stars of those Games – the people who can really lift the country – are profiled in the right way, so that when the times comes, the public know who they are and can really get behind their story and their journey to 2012. That way, the British public can almost live the Games alongside the athletes, because you really do want everyone to feel part of the 2012 experience.

From grassroots right through to the most senior corporate person, everyone shares in that responsibility. We’re now looking at Britain hosting some pretty major world sporting events in the forthcoming years – following the 2012 Games we’ve got the Rugby World Cup in 2016, and the bid for the football equivalent in 2018.

So if we can make 2012 the success it should be, the sporting legacy will just snowball. And in that way, the youngsters who are possibly choosing other things to do in life might choose sport and feel that they can be not just winners, but world-beaters.

Can these new role models like Ennis and Bolt inspire kids to choose athletics over other sports?

I think so. The sport has evolved in so many ways as the years have gone on and characters like Usain Bolt just has truly global appeal. They attract a younger audience because they look cool and seem accessible. Jess has an appealing image already – very girly, very down-to-earth, very open and someone you feel you could get to know – and then Usain just personifies fun in every way.

It’s easy to forget that first and foremost sport should be fun, and that serious competitive element should be secondary to that. We need sport to be cool and appeal to youngsters and we’re currently in a position where we have a number of athletes, globally, who carry that message.

As an athlete in the heat of the moment, how do you retain that ‘fun’ factor without losing focus?

Well at that moment you really are in the heat of the battle so admittedly you’re not thinking about the fun, you’re focused on delivering your performance. But more broadly speaking, especially when you’ve had a setback – and I’ve had several over the years – you start to appreciate the sport in a different way.

You do make sure you get the most out of training because, at some stage, the fun element becomes a result of your own success and your own progression. If you’re honouring yourself in that way, you are enjoying the journey regardless.

And then of course when you hit the big time, you get to do fun things off the track too as a result of all the hard graft – working with great people, establishing good relationships, and getting involved in fun projects like I do with British Airways. It then snowballs, and the fun factor and the athleticism start to move hand in hand.

How would you advise young athletes to cope with the added pressure that media attention brings?

Unfortunately, it’s just part of the learning curve. You can’t separate the two. It’s like, how do you understand how to budget during university? You have to actually go through it to understand how to cope better with it. It’s part of the development and it can’t really be taught outright.

This is possibly one of the problems that we are going to face over the years. We’re already seeing athletes reaching the pinnacle of success at a very young age, so they are entering their sport much more skilled and much more developed earlier on – frequently hitting the big time before they’re even twenty years old. Usain Bolt, at the age of just 23, has won six global medals in two years – and gold medals at that.

Obviously you’re not mature enough really to deal with those things but you just have to walk that path to understand how to manage it. And ultimately, they will become better athletes for it – for having to work to achieve that balance. After all, that it what we all strive for in our lives – balancing work and play, and that’s really what it’s all about for them too.

We’re seeing World Records get smashed year on year – how and why does this happen?

In certain events – for example in swimming for some reason – we are seeing World Records beaten frequently, year on year. But I don’t think that’s the case in every event at all. In athletics, the men’s sprints seem to be out there on their own on this one. Some of the women’s records are 20 or 30 years old. We probably will see records broken again, but only by someone like Usain Bolt. He has redefined the sporting landscape in sprinting.

We haven’t had someone who is 6’5” able to break records like he does. He’s talking about going into Long Jump, maybe dabbling in the 400m... he really will re-write all the history books and I can’t see anyone else doing that to the same degree for a very long time.

Interview Courtesy of BA Great Britons – www.greatbritons.ba.com