When did you realise that you had a talent for athletics?
At a very young age my PE teacher at school, Debbie Paige, convinced me to do a cross-country race in the wet, wind, rain and cold. I came second but it made me feel like next time I wanted to win so she encouraged me to go to an athletics club, and because I suppose I was naturally gifted at running I enjoyed it, it felt easy.

Did you have big ambitions from the start?
Yes, since I was 14. I watched Sebastian Coe win a gold medal in the Olympic Games in 1984 and thought ‘that’s it, that’s what I’ve got to do’ and that was in my head forever. I think there’s an element that’s embedded in you as a person, that you can’t really describe to people. You can obviously teach people skills and they develop – some are naturally talented, some have to work a bit harder – but I think that determination and confidence is sometimes harder to teach. I’ve always had a competitive edge to me.

Were your friends and family supportive?
Always, right from the start. My mum was the one that took me down to the athletics club after my teacher called her, though the first thing she said to me was, “You had better stick at this one!” I’d been to so many different clubs by then, and she thought it was going to be another whim – spend on trainers and not get past a week type of thing, little did she know! Their support was really important through my junior career and even more so through my senior career because they’re the ones that see the emotional side of the journey that you’re taking and the ones that try and keep you focused on it all the time.

You had considerable athletic success at a young age, what made you decide to join the Army?
I’d always wanted a career and to do something different, then when I was at school we had careers advisors visiting and they showed a video of the Army. There was a soldier screaming and shouting at other soldiers, doing an assault course, slinging through mud and jumping over walls, and I knew that was all I ever wanted. So I applied every year until I was finally old enough to be allowed to do the test. I wanted to be a physical training instructor but there was no intake so I ended up joining the HGV drive.

Do you think the discipline you learnt in those years helped with your athletics training in the future?
The whole ethos of the Forces – the discipline and learning to fend for yourself – is the same as in athletics; you have to be confident and committed to your training. Being in the Army made me grow up a lot as well, aged 21 I was in charge of a lot of people in my unit, and had to do the planning, preparation and goal-setting, which is what you have to do in athletics.

What prompted you to return to athletics?
I still had the ambition to be an Olympic champion but at that time I was in my late teens, early twenties, when I just wanted to be having fun. I was still competing in the Army, but didn’t do a lot of training. Then when I was posted in Yorkshire a guy called Wes Duncan, who had seen me running when I was a junior, saw me do an army cross-country race and managed to persuade me to get back into athletics in the winter of 1992. By the summer of 1993 I had been selected for the World Championships and it went on from there.
For the next few years I was balancing training with my army life, which was a challenge. I would take leave to go away and compete, and come back full of adrenalin from an amazing event then be brought back down to earth standing guarding the barracks at 2am in the fog. I learnt to adapt, but because I’m very much a person that gives 100% to everything I do, when I started getting bad injuries in 1997 and knew it would affect my job as a physical training instructor I had to make the decision to leave the army and focus on athletics. From then on athletics became my life.

Did you follow a strict food plan throughout your career?
To be a successful sports person you have to see the food you put in your body as fuel, so I would look at the amount of energy and endurance that I needed for the sessions that I was doing and eat accordingly. I’ve always had a really sweet tooth so I had to minimise my chocolate intake to just treats, but I always had a Chinese takeaway once a week. The worst thing is to ignore cravings, because it doesn’t last long and then you just eat more. If I raced well then I would eat what I wanted afterwards as a luxury then go back to my usual food regime the next day.

You’re most well known for your double gold in Athens, but you’d already had Olympic, World, European and Commonwealth success by then, what made you push for an Olympic Gold medal?
It was a dream. The fact I had been very successful in other European tours and World Championships even off the back of really bad injuries gave me the confidence and belief that I was capable of racing and beating the best in the world. I just had to get it right on the day.

You came fourth at the 1996 Olympic Games, and won a bronze in Sydney in 2000 – both incredible achievements, but did you feel at all frustrated because you’d always dreamt of gold?
When I came fourth at the 1996 games and got pipped to the line I definitely did – I couldn’t help but think, ‘if only I’d had the last week and a half to train’. Then in 2000 I only had six weeks to run because of injury and didn’t even think I’d be at those Games, so in my head getting a bronze was like a gold medal. I was 30 and I thought that might be my last Games, I didn’t think I’d be as good or even better by the age of 34, but you live on hope.