Colin Jackson

0:04Hello and welcome to The Midpoint. My guest today has been on my radar for almost 40 years. He was part of a golden generation of athletes who captured the nation's hearts, well certainly mine, in the 1990s when he dominated the high hurdles and became the fastest man on the planet. He won every single major title and 44 races in a row apart from Olympic gold. We'll get on to that. Born in Cardiff to Jamaican parents, he was an all-round sporting talent but somehow swerved cricket, rugby and football and found his way to the track. It is, of course, Colin Jackson. Known for his megawatt smile and for looking immaculate at all times, Colin's silky footwork led him to second place on Strictly Come Dancing.

0:43He was robbed. And now he has a successful sports broadcasting career, as well as still being involved in the business side of athletics. He's always kept his personal life away from the media and waited until long after his athletics retirement to talk about his sexuality, coming out as gay in 2017. He supported countless charities, including setting up GoDad Run to raise awareness of men's health issues and money for many male-based charities, including Prostate Cancer. He is one of the nicest blokes you could ever meet and I'm delighted that you're going to get to do that today. So let's go chat to Colin.

1:19Colin Jackson, welcome to The Midpoint. Thank you very much. Can't believe it's taken me this long to get you here. It's absolutely fine. You knew I was always going to come at some stage, so it's great. Technically, you are older than me. Yes. So, you know, kind of you are in the midpoint still and you've been there for a while. But because you look so youthful, you know, I didn't have you on my initial guest list. I was like, oh, when he eventually gets there, this is the guy who's got a portrait in an attic somewhere that clearly is ageing and he isn't. And which is something we've teased you about.

1:47You have. For a long time. You have indeed. So today we're going to kind of unlock all the secrets. OK. All right. To your kind of youthful appearance. All right. Amongst other things. All right. But we just had a kind of off pod conversation that you started. I said, hold it. You said, I'm on the warrior diet. Yeah. OK, let's start with that. OK, so the warrior diet. Steve Batley, great job and throw as you very well know. I saw him at one of the Diamond Leagues and he just looked a million dollars from what I saw. And I thought, quite rudely, what happened to you? You look great. Not like you look like hell before, but you absolutely look great.

2:24He went, CJ, I've got to tell you, I'm on this thing called the warrior diet. I was like, okay, talk to me a little bit about it. And he said, well, basically, it's like 20 hours of not eating, four hours of eating. Right. And so you choose your four hours of eating. They've got to be in that one block. The rest of the time is complete fasting, right? So I said, okay. Not even a coffee or a... You can have a coffee. You can have water. You can have mint teas. All that is doable. And I said to him, so why did you go on it? And he said, because of inflammation, body inflammation. And he felt that it's really worked wonders for him.

2:55So I thought, oh, this sounds pretty good, you know, we're all getting a bit older. My skin's not as good as it used to be. And there was all a little bit of, you know, a little bit of inflammation here, there and everywhere. And I thought to myself, well, I'm going to go on that, but not quite yet. So what I did is have a word with my sister, who's a little bit older than me. So she has a little bit more inflammation than me. And I said to her, look, Batley's on this diet. He said it's amazing. Go on it soon and see how it goes. She goes, yeah, OK. She goes, because she has like arthritic toes and hips.

3:25So she said, let me have a go. Is this seven days a week? Seven days a week. So she went on it. After three days, she virtually didn't feel nothing in her toe. It literally cleared up all her inflammation situations. And I could not believe this. And I was like, yeah, whatever. And she said, I have clarity in my brain now. It's easier for me to learn scripts, et cetera, et cetera. And I was like, shut up. Nothing can work that well. Seriously. so I went on it about two or three weeks after them and I feel amazing I generally feel amazing So what four hours have you chosen? I choose between two and six because then it's easy because I always feel it's still quite sociable so if I was going out with somebody for lunch I can just have a late lunch or if I'm going out for dinner I can have an early dinner but if I'm at home And it has to be four hours It has to be four hours for it to really kind of work properly And where did Backley get this from?

4:20I have no idea but all I know is that it worked for me as well. I feel great. And you've always been somebody who's been really aware of your health. You've always looked after yourself. So to hear that even you could tweak things and feel better. Yeah. But then I guess as you're getting older, the things you've done before don't always have the same impact, do they? And that is the important thing that you've just stressed there because when you're young and you're youthful, everything seems to work. You can get hurt, you can put on a lot of weight and your body will fix it, right? Let's go for a few runs.

4:52Absolutely, and it's all done for you. Now it doesn't work so well. So you've really got to be really clever in the way that you kind of embrace things with your – and I want to use your new body because it is. It's not the body that's on your own. So why does it work then? Do you know the science behind it? I think the science behind it is that your body is allowed to repair because when you're filling up your body constantly with food, it spends all its time trying to digest this food. And when you're layering it time after time and time, all the blood flow, et cetera, et cetera, goes there.

5:23Once you clear out, your body's like, right, okay, let's use everything we have as a tool to repair everything. So kind of, it does like a constant scan. And it says, okay, time to repair. Now, Steve Backley's not here to defend himself. I know he likes a beer, okay. So does he not drink anything anymore or does... Interesting, because I stress that. I asked my sister about this. She says, do you think I'm going to stop drinking wine? I said, no, no. So I checked it. You can literally have anything. Within that four-hour period. So that is key to when you get, I mean, you can't be doing 10 till 2, can you?

5:55And start your gin and tonics at 11 in the morning. That's not going to work. It's not going to work. So for me, it's been something, and you know, as I always said, you know me well enough, Gabby. I always say to people, try stuff. If it works for you, it's great. If it doesn't work for you, bin it and go get something else. Well, a lot of people do like fasting. We've discussed it quite a bit on The Midpoint, actually, because it works for some people. It works and it doesn't work for others. But I guess it's called Warrior because it must be based on the idea that when we were hunter-gatherers and we were kind of, we didn't have the chance to eat 24 hours a day.

6:21We do everything 24 hours a day now, can't we? So that's where it stems from, is it? That's how we would have eaten in the past. Exactly right, because we gorge everything nowadays when we didn't have the ability to do that. If you go down into the studies of anthropology, you realise that human beings, yes, we're hunter and gatherers, but, you know, carbohydrate as we have it, even fruit as we have it, it wouldn't have really existed in our times because there would be another time we would allow fruit to ripen on a tree, you know, because it'd be taken by all the other animals before it got ripe.

6:52So when we saw it, we would take it, and it'd be more like akin to a vegetable. So it'd be more of its greenstone. It wouldn't have the sugars. Exactly. The only time we would tend to get any sense of sugar would be when honey was made by the bees, where we would smoke it out, go up there, cut it down, and gorge on it. And we have this sense of gorging on carbohydrate because it's something that is part of survival for us. So that's the way that it all started back. And now we've kind of made it a big issue, but the body hasn't changed. So we have carbohydrate around us all the time. And our bodies haven't adapted to it.

7:28Our bodies haven't adapted to it. We've got to appreciate and realise that and recognise it. What's your main motivation when it comes to health? Is it, you know, is there a bit of, like all of us, a bit of vanity? Is it about longevity? You know, like what's, because I've noticed I've changed my, I was in the gym the other day and I was, you know when you have those days where you're doing it but you're not as motivated and you're kind of thinking I was lifting weights and I suddenly had to give myself a little pep talk and I thought you're doing this because you want to play tennis with your grandchildren when you're 80 you know that's why it's about longevity now it's not about getting into a smaller dress size or do you know what I mean it's different so what's your because initially you were doing it to get a world record absolutely yeah it's very different it's very you're right it's very different I was explaining this to somebody yesterday about the fact that training as an athlete is very different to training to just keep yourself generally fit.

8:17I mean, training as an athlete is kind of destructive to your body. It's not really good for you. Let's be honest, right? I mean, I ended up having 70 arms, all this business, and I'm sure we'll get into that. But nowadays, health and fitness is about that sense of being health and fitness. Being able to touch your toes, you know, without bending your knees is a great thing. I always remind people, you're as young as your spine. So if you keep a real healthy spine about it, where you can be upright, you can be flexible, you can tell them you're always going to have a youthful demeanour. I don't want to be forever young.

8:47I'm happy to drift away and go back to old age, but let me just be functional. You've just brought something up which made me really smart when you said you want to play tennis with your grandkids. One of my mate's father was 86. By the way, I don't have any yet. Yeah, no, no, no, no, no. And hopefully it's a while. Kids, if you're listening, no hurry. And you're not 80. Let's get back here. But one of my mates, a father who was 86, one of his huge, huge, huge wants in his life before he died, he said he wants to play tennis with me. And it took him until he was 86 to play tennis with me. And we played two hours of tennis as an 86-year-old man was playing on the court with us.

9:28Wow. Eventually his wife came and said, you get off. You've had enough. You're pushing your left. 86, two hours of tennis. And that's where we want to be. Yeah, yeah. And so, again, it's that kind of building a program itself that works for you, that's functional for you, that is part that you incorporate into your lifestyle. Not that it takes over your lifestyle. Yeah. You incorporate into your lifestyle and you go. I mean, I'm wearing this jumper here now that I've gone on. I bought ready for this in 1992. And I always giggle to myself where I think, well, I'm happy I can still fit into the clothes that I bought when I was at my prime in athletics.

10:06I know other fellow male sports stars. Don't always achieve that. Don't kind of hang on to it. So when I look at that and I feel that, and I pulled it on, I started giggling to myself. You know, it's quite an expensive jumper now. Yeah, you don't want to get rid of expensive cashmere jumpers, Colin. It's not going. It's all very sustainable. I mean, you're wearing something that's into its fourth decade. 1992. And then what still things that make me giggle is that all my clothes now that I have, my nephew wears, who's 22. And I always say to you. Does he like all your retro kit? He loves it all.

10:37He loves it all. And I was giggling to myself when I said to him, why are you wearing clothes of somebody who's nearly 60? And he goes, why are you dressing like you're 22? Touche. Because I can. I think it's the answer to that. Your nephew is really important to you, isn't he? Absolutely, yeah. And not having children yourself. Is he kind of like the boy that you've never had? Yeah, absolutely. And I remember when he was born, because he was born in New York, and I was training in Australia at the time. I flew him to New York to see him. He was born luckily around Christmas, so it wasn't so much I had.

11:16Hardship to get to New York at Christmas time. And I picked him up and I looked at him and I was just keep looking at him. And my sister said to me, why are you looking at him like that? And I said, I was just looking at him and I'm wishing him the life that I've had. Because the life I've had is a dream. and if you could give someone exactly the same, even the pitfalls, things I've got, I've always come out on top in that sense. So I was very, so if he can go through all the things that I've gone through, he'll have a great life and he's doing all right. Was it an instant bond? Yeah, I think we were really lucky in that sense as well because, you know, I got a divorce and he moved over from the US to the UK and then I become the surrogate dad in that sense.

12:03So we were going skiing and snowboarding from the time he was five. You were a fun dad. I was kind of, yeah, yeah. You know, you play that uncle, which uncles can get away with absolute murder and just give them back. So, you know, one of my good things would be, he'd always come to me for food or for those extra little treats and I'd be giving him the sugar and say, go back to your mother now, there you go. Because I feel like your family, from what I know, is I imagine your upbringing was quite disciplined. Your parents were very strict. Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, as you know, if you speak to anybody who comes from the Caribbean in that sense, their discipline is quite harsh in that sense.

12:42So we were always kind of under the cosh. And when I think about it now, it must have been so difficult for parents to come over from the Caribbean, try and land into this country where, you know, people are very much against you, trying to find a job, trying to find a home, trying to bring up kids, trying to then discipline the kids and be quite protective of them because it was a dangerous world out there at that particular stage. And so I think my parents did a very good job in managing that. Now, when you're young, you don't generally appreciate that, what they're doing to you. But on reflection, when I look back, I just realised it must have been absolute hell for them.

13:26But they did it. They were assimilating to a new culture themselves. Absolutely. While kind of working their way out as to how their kids were going to. Where they're going to find their way. Yeah, through this particular life. And one of the things I talk to my mum about it now and speak, me and my sister, lots of our generation talk about it. The difficulties of being the first generation in a new country because my mum and dad, coming from Jamaica, Jamaica was still always their home. It was a home for them. They knew that was their roots. If I went to Jamaica, I'm kind of not Jamaican because I'm brought up in Britain, right, in that sense.

14:09And then when you're British, in some terms of knowledge, black Brits specifically, they don't see you as British as well. And so where is your home when you're the first generation? You're a foreigner there and you're treated like a foreigner in a place that is the place of your birth. And that's quite difficult to, again, navigate. So did you achieving what you did and wearing the GB flag and making this country so proud, did that for them, was it extra special in terms of the endorsement of their being British? Yeah. And especially for my grandparents, you know, they were the ones who really, really embraced it the most.

14:50And I remember my auntie said to me, so my grandfather and my auntie, they all used to go to this one particular club in Cardiff, in Kittes. and my nan went, you know, your grandfather, you know, he don't pay for no drinks anymore, you know, because you're doing so, so well. And then my auntie was going, yeah, it gets on my nerves. We're forking out for everything. He walks in there giving him everything. And then I realised the importance of success to our one little community. My grandfather was so, so, so proud. And that meant, and he did give me a couple of warnings along the way, he said, if you don't know any decent people, I do, so behave yourself, right?

15:30So I was like, oh, yeah, okay, I need to behave myself. Because I can imagine if anything really went wrong for him, well, I say wrong for me in a negative way, it'd be mortifying for him. So I had to have that full-on respect for the whole family because I was carrying a lot. I was going to say you were taking a community with you. Absolutely. Not just your nuclear family. Yeah, absolutely. And maybe that's why I think along the way, while you had this, and I described in your introduction, this megawatt smile and very charismatic and people were really drawn to you, you didn't give loads away about yourself.

16:05No, no, I never have and never will. Because for me, I'm laughing about this because I never, ever really wanted to be famous. That was the thing. I just wanted to run fast. And that's all I wanted to do. it's just do what I can do and do it to the best of my ability so the fame business of it I didn't take to it easily and I think I was lucky that I hung around with people who I consider to be much more famous than myself so when you're hanging around with people who have more fame than you, you feel to yourself I can just stay in their shadow a little bit and just be happy with what I do and don't have to worry about the fame game What were the downsides?

16:51Uh, responsibility. As anybody knows me, it's like, I hate having, I hate carrying stuff, right? Just let me play. I think lots of times I'm just too playful. And not having or wanting to have responsibility is a nightmare. And you know, straight away, when you become a winner, there's pressure on you straight away. You become, people start throwing things at you that you don't particularly want to have to deal with. Because all I want to do is train hard and run and that's it. And show everybody what I was capable of doing. So it was always going to be a little bit tricky for me to deal with that.

17:29And I was the same in school. There was nothing really different in that way. And then people will potentially look at it and go, were you like that? Because your sexuality as well. and I was like, no, that never ever came into the picture for me in that sense. You just didn't talk about it. No, no, no. Which is quite a new, I mean, I know we're talking different. I didn't talk about much though, did I? No, I was going to say, but it was different times, I guess. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you think if you were a young athlete now you'd feel any more like you wanted to share that? No. No. I think, knowing me, I just don't change those things about me.

18:06So when I say change those things about me, I don't think it changed my sexuality. but what I mean is I just don't try and change my personality so much and so I feel I would have always been the person that I am and now I think what I'd be braver is me telling people to deal with it not with me having to deal with it on my own but I'll tell you to deal with it, I don't really care I would still be quite quiet though Do young athletes come and speak to you about things like that privately? Yeah, yeah, yeah and I always smile, I always really smile because I feel a little bit proud about it because I remember one of my mates who was working in the police and he was working in the LGBTQ plus kind of side of the police force.

18:49And he was always saying, I wish you'd properly tell people that, blah, blah, blah. I wish you would, I wish you would. And I was like, why? I couldn't. I was like, why, why do you want me to do it? He went, you will make a difference to so many young people's lives. And I couldn't get it. I couldn't see it. I didn't understand what he actually meant about, oh, you mean, I just think, well. And because I'm one of those where my brain kind of works, like if I don't understand it, I won't adopt it. And that's everything I do. You know, it doesn't matter. Was it opening a door or a box that you just didn't want to kind of discover?

19:24No, I didn't. I couldn't work out what, why it would make so much of a difference. Can you see now? Well, after people come up to me and ask me questions and tell me straight, you know, that I've changed their life, then you see it. But that goes abroad being a black man, you know, as well. People say, you were a great role model for being black, blah, blah, blah, blah, your successes are great. Yeah, okay. But you see, you didn't even think about that too much at the time. You think about your smaller community, yeah, rather than the wider, the bigger picture. Yeah. So, I mean, and now I'm kind of happy that people feel comfortable in having to talk and being able to talk to me about my sexuality in that sense and how they...

20:14Nobody changed, by the way. As you can imagine, when everything came out and I said, nobody went... It was just like the same old, same old. I remember Denise Lewis messaging going to me, Hallelujah. Now people will stop asking me all this. I was like, you are so selfish. Did it ever feel that, you know, when people are having conversations about families and relationships and you weren't joining in those conversations, maybe. Did you ever feel then, oh, I want to tell people about somebody I really love or I really like or I've met somebody who's special to me. Did those conversations feel? That's a great question now, Gabby.

20:53It never, ever really came to me to do that. Because most of the time when I was listening to people's conversations like that, I'd be going, well, I know what you're up to. I know what you're up to. So you can shut your face out. But I'm sitting there with my lips. So I was kind of quite happy being in my own little judgmental world. Did you ever have relationships where the person you were with wanted the world to know that they were with you or they felt that they were being kept a secret? Not really. Because it was, I mean, some were people in industries, music industries, film industries, in that sense, and they were just on their own, I want to use their own, their own little selfish trip, if that makes sense.

21:47So it's just like, I'm not having this involved in it because if that goes involved and this happens here. So in a way you maybe found yourself attracted to people who were similarly kind of, yeah. Yeah, I think you always will do that. It worked for both of you. Absolutely, in that sense. And now, even now, when I think about it, we talk about, as I'm approaching that big old C-0 mark, right? Unbelievably. Yeah. I love it. I feel I've never, ever felt like I've wanted to be so much on my own as I do now. Really? That sounds a bit of a stick, right? I absolutely thought you were going to say the opposite.

22:25No. I thought you were going to say, I've never felt like I wanted to be married and living with somebody. Really? No, no, no. And I think, you could say I'm saying with enthusiasm. Yeah, I think we can hear that. Yeah. Do you know what? What I'm loving now as I'm getting a little bit older, is more and more freedom. I've really appreciated being free. You know when you just have your own agenda? I don't have to do anything. I literally have my own agenda. if I want to focus, concentrate fully on my nephew for six weeks because he needs help with this, he wants a job search, he wants to do this.

23:01I've got no one pulling me to say to me, can you, you know, we're due to go on holiday in a sense. And you were, no, no, no, no, no. I've got it all. I've got everything is set out for me. And I absolutely love him that part of my life right now. Do you think that's a reaction? You mentioned it kind of earlier. The early part of your life was so regimented. almost institutionalised. You knew exactly where you had to be every single day, you know, for training, for drug testers. But, you know, then there was going to be this competition, that competition. You were on a treadmill of somebody else dictating your life.

23:35I don't mean some one person. It's just the nature of sport. Yeah, life was that way. And I was always put in the way that I thought this was the only way to do it as well. So I had no flexibility. So when things were really regimented, I kind of just took that on board, that, yeah, this is the way it's got to be. And it kind of works in sport, doesn't it? It works to be in that kind of rhythm. Yeah, and what I loved about it is that I was capable of doing that with lots of people, lots of friends that I knew around me weren't, and they were distracted by all sorts of stuff. But I knew that was never going to happen to me, so I was really fortunate that I could literally just crack on.

24:12Were you hyper-focused? Overly. And on reflection, I think I could have played a little bit more and still got the results that I had, you know. But I didn't want to be that person who was always going to be the one, oh, what if? So I took away that option off the table. It was never going to be a what if moment for me. It was like I did, I did, I did. And if it didn't work out that way, salve. But there's no way I can ever look at myself and go, oh, man, I wish I'd have done this, that, this and the other. You gave everything. Everything, everything, yeah. And achieved everything apart from one thing.

24:52Yeah. And when you look at your career, which had world records, 44 consecutive wins, most people assume you're an Olympic champion, don't they? I mean, it's almost like we don't need to bring it to the table because people just think you are. But it is that kind of elephant in the room, isn't it? That like certain people, Paula's the same, isn't she? You know, Paula Reckley. Yeah. Didn't get that thing. Yeah. How long does it take to kind of reconcile that with yourself? As an athlete, as a performing athlete, you never do when you've been around as long as I was around. I think what rubs salt into the wound for me was that my training partner took the gold medal.

25:29Who you just beat all the time. Yeah, I mean, in training, it was every day, you know, you just put them away. It's not even a thought about, right, what's going to happen here? Well, you're going to be behind me. What's the big deal, right? And so that was a really rubs salt into it. But in the same breath, that kind of made me grow because I knew all the preparation was done perfectly well for the job in hand. What wasn't done perfectly well was my cockiness in presuming it just takes to turn up and you're going to win. So I learned a life lesson. Never had the opportunity to get it back, but I learned a life lesson that has carried me through from being 26 to where I am now.

26:11articulate that lesson for us. What would you call that lesson? Is it humility? Complacency. Right. Never be complacent. Because if you be complacent in any stage, and the coach, Malcolm Arnold, my coach, reminded me on the very day that complacency has a tendency to bite you on your backside. Did he say that that day? Those are the exact words. Wow. And I just laughed. I just laughed at him. I was 25. I was the best in the world. I had not been beaten. The second best in the world is the person I'm training with every day and putting away. who were you talking to? That was my, like, come on. This is, it's not happening.

26:48Because you've got to, as a sports person, have that sense of belief, right? It's that fine line between being so, you know, unbelievably confident. Yeah. But also, as Malcolm tried to tell you. Yeah, and you just don't listen. I mean, I remember going down to the track a couple of days before and going on to, the rostrum was already built there and jumping on the top rostrum and waving, and this will be me in a couple of days' time. And Mark was standing there and he said, no, I'm not doing that, it's bad luck. And I went, come on, get it. He said, no, no, it's bad luck. Guess who was right? So the rest of your career, that was always there.

27:25As a person, it's something now you can talk about and say what it did for you and how it changed you. And it happens, as you pointed out, two great athletes there who didn't get to that top of that. Yeah, I mean, but their reasons were very different to mine. You know, Paul's illnesses, injuries, bad timing, all the same size. You, on the other hand. I deserve to lose, let's be honest. You were at the peak of your powers. Absolutely. What was that like in terms of, you know, I can't remember what the press did to you at that point, or did they treat you kindly? No. No. Come on, Gabby. Do you ever imagine?

28:04No. When you're supposed to be a favourite, you end up seventh. I mean, it was just hell. I mean, it was difficult for me because I felt after it, I always say to people, I wanted this Superman moment. If anybody can remember the film when I think Lois Lane, she kind of was kind of crushed in an earthquake and Superman was so upset that he flew up and he flew around the world to stop it and he rotated the world to go back. So if he could go back, so he could go back and save her. That's exactly what I wanted to do. I was, where's Superman? Just take the world back. I promise you I will warm up.

28:40I will do everything that's necessary. I won't do it. And then you realise that that's just fantasy, right? It's not going to happen. And so I was mortified for everybody else around me more than myself. And I destroyed an environment, a really, really great training environment. Because Mark winning the Olympic title, Mark McCoy winning the Olympic title, he never, ever enjoyed that gold medal because he felt it wasn't his. and I remember, because Mark was living in my house with his wife and all his business and I remember we both came home from Barcelona and my mum and dad kind of came to the door and I walked in and Mark was really like what am I going to do here now?

29:28And I could see and he said to my mother do you want to see the medal? And my mother said what do I want to see the medal for? Why do I want to see the medal? If it's not Collins, I know you keep your medal and I trust it. This is Jackson. And she's savage. And I remember I was mortified for him because he didn't know what to do. He didn't deserve that. Absolutely he didn't. Absolutely. And so, and exactly the same thing in training. People were kind of like, well, you shouldn't have been winning this, should you? You know, if you didn't come over here, you wouldn't have won that gold medal. If you'd have stayed in Canada and trained with all your lot, you wouldn't have the ability.

30:05Because he was chasing you. That's all he was doing. And he did the game well. You know, I think he reminded me that everything we'd done was right and it was about me. It wasn't about anything else. So, again, it's that thing of not having everything you did was accurate and you couldn't have done any more. And as a group, we couldn't have done any more. Remember Linford Christie was training with us as well. Linford won the court. It's only me as a loser. So I was kind of like, I paid for it. I absolutely did. I mean, I had to go on following you, but... Yeah, I mean, things did get better. Things did get a little bit better, but still, you know, the Olympic Games in that moment, I should have, I absolutely should have won the title.

30:48No, we started talking, this episode started talking about the warrior diet that you were on. And as I mentioned in your introduction, you've always looked great. When you had that bad moment and things weren't so great, did you go to Greg's? I mean, have you ever kind of gorged? Have you ever thought, oh, sod this, I'm going to just have burgers? Because I've never seen that side of you. And you would be correct. I would not be doing that. I would struggle, generally struggle to do that. Because, you know, I've had eaten choices as well as an athlete. So there was so many things that were plaguing in my brain at that stage.

31:26To go and let your hair down in that sense would have been like... Because food was in some ways the enemy. Big time. Absolutely big time. If I could go back in time there, I would look after myself so much better and I would have been so much better. You know so much more about nutrition now. So much more. And I would have been so much better and most probably happier too, because everybody would know how you feel sometimes when you're completely starving yourself. and I was, you know, I mean, days, there were days, Gabby, as an athlete, I would be having no more than two or three days a week, I'd have no more than 900 calories a day.

32:05And you were training for hours? Yeah, five hours a day. How were you actually a world record holder on that kind of diet? I have no idea. I generally have no idea or reflection. But I've got it, all this is documented. Yeah, and you've... And I've got the diaries and everything. And because I was so meticulous of what I did, I made sure if it was 100 grams of raw prawns and then cooked, that's all I was having. And if I was having 200 grams of natural yoghurt and all the calories that I took in, then black coffee, black coffee, black coffee, black coffee, black coffee. And who around you noticed this and was able to get through to you?

32:39Some of the... Right, okay. When you're being so, so successful, what you end up having is people just loving your successes and they're afraid to take you on because of your success, right? So that's your starting point, unfortunately, and I use that word unfortunately, because if people were, what's I've seen? I mean, I remember this one guy called Colin Vervell, who's a coach now up in Loughborough, Colin. I remember I came to training one day, he went, how thin are you? He went, I can see your hip bones through your training tights. And I just laughed it off. I never saw that. but he absolutely did.

33:20There's a bit of you that I'm sure thought, great. Well, part of it, right? Because that means things are going right. I remember one time I was in, we were doing an international and one of my training partners, a girl called Sally-Anne Short and Sally-Anne was quite mouthy so she was never going to be quiet. Because I was bulimic as well. So we'd gone out to eat and I came back into the room, kind of, I should have myself, straight into the bathroom, it was a climactor right there and they were all taunting in there. So I was trying to kind of time it with them talking so they couldn't hear me vomiting, right?

33:52And I kind of mistimed it one time. And I came back out of the room and literally the room was like this, just staring at me. And Salian said, have you just been thrown up in there? I was like, oh, yeah, I wasn't feeling very well. I must have had something. I was kind of being quite defensive. I was like, I was embarrassed, right? They actually heard me. But, you know, I was trying my best to keep that to myself in that sense. So I didn't have or wasn't brave enough to really tell people or reach out to somebody and say, I'm really troubled by this. But also the people who were interested, the medical staff must have seen me.

34:29And, you know, when I'd strip off in the physio, they must have looked at me. But I guess, like you say, you're producing the goods. And this is the big problem. And I think they should have really stepped in. I generally, on reflection, they should have said, right, we need to look after you a little bit better. But I spoke to coach Malcolm about it properly. Malcolm said, well, let's see a nutritionist then. Let's get to a nutritionist. So I sat down with the nutritionist and I started explaining my situation to her. And she said, right, do you know what I think you need to have? You need to eat more ice buns.

35:03Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Right. Now you're talking to me and you're telling me to eat ice buns. I just got uplift. Sounds like nutrition's come a long way. Yes. I spun. I'll never forget it. And I just left. And I never, ever, ever, from that day forth, I've never visited a nutritionist centre. Really? But you've learned along the way. And when you look back at that young man, what do you feel? Sad for him. Sadness because of, I don't think that young man enjoyed it. I don't think he generally enjoyed his journey. I think he did what was necessary, but didn't have a full sense of enjoyment. And I would pull that young man now aside and go, do you know what?

35:52Your future is going to be all right. So stop your worrying. Enjoy this moment. Enjoy being young and youthful. Because remember, every day you look in the mirror, that's the best you're going to look. And every day you're going to get a little bit older. But trust me, as you know, you look every day. So you should enjoy the ride. but I don't think he enjoyed it. Do you think a lot of sports people don't, at the time, really enjoy it? I don't know. I think a lot too as well. Because, first of all, you're young. You're young. You're in the best physical shape ever. People, adoration is thrown at you, not just here but globally.

36:36We're a global sport in that sense. I'd have just as much interest me if I arrived in Germany, in Switzerland in the Netherlands, Italy to France as I would here in the UK. So you're getting global adoration in that sense You're doing something you absolutely love You've got a body to die for Oh I miss the body You have that body to die for and you're being celebrated and you're getting a lot of cash along the wayside and why would you not enjoy this life? So really there was a lot more to it than just you feeling pressure to perform. There's a lot of psychological things that were happening with you that were perhaps peculiar to you at the time.

37:22Guilt. I had a lot of guilt. And I know that may be a strange thing to say. Yeah, where was that from? The guilt was I was brought up in Llaneddin in Cardiff and I saw lots of my friends not do so well as myself and I saw lots of my training partners who worked really hard and never made it. And, you know, by the time I was 21, I had a major medal at every single championship. I hadn't been in a sports shop to buy clothes or anything since I was 15. And I was guilty of my success and getting all the rewards when people around me were working just as hard. Why me? Why me? Yeah. And that was a huge, huge bit of me, which I couldn't really deal with.

38:11But I speak to my sisters about the same thing. She says she has that same sense of guilt as well. And it's odd that we both have that feeling with our success. We don't go bravado. We go the complete opposite. And so I had to learn to deal with that. But you've got no example really around. I'll give you one thing. It was 1994. It was the Grand Prix final and we were in Paris. And I didn't want to go to this meeting. And the French and world athletics I'd have left at the time kind of persuaded me. So, you know, when you say persuaded me, they threw out the money, basically, to get me to go there.

38:56I did want to go. Linford was going. Linford was like, I'm going, I'm going. I said, I don't want to go. He said, no, no, come, come, come. Anyway, I ended up going. So they took us, they put us in Hotel Crayon, which you're nodded so you know. Yeah, yeah. Right, the hotel there, it's where all the dignitaries go, where all people in Farozy are concerned. It was the 90s I saw, so many of the supermodels were staying there. It was that era. Oozoo of the world. It's probably where the IOC stayed when the Olympics were on in Paris. Most probably. Yeah, yeah. Probably. My room, I know we've got a lovely sized studio here, but this was nothing compared to the room that I was in, right?

39:32I was in the biggest room I'd ever been in in my entire life. And the bed was stuck there in the middle. And Linford came to my room. He knocked the door. He came in and he didn't flinch because his room was probably twice as big as mine. But he came in and he said, oh, I'm going shopping. I was like, oh, I'm not going shopping. I'm just going to stay here. I just stayed. He said, oh, I'll see you when I come back. So he went and I sat on the bed and I looked around this room. I burst into tears. because of that sense of guilt. I was like, I mean, why am I even here? All I do is run fast. And look at all this.

40:05And I have some of my friends who can't even, like, buy food. And look at this. This is just overindulgent just because I can run fast. And I wasn't sure how well I could deal with that. And if you think of other industries, you know, sometimes in the music industries, You can see some big artists have to pull themselves away from it because of a similar environment and sort of feeling. And you return to it because you see sense in some ways. And you realise this is where your bread and butter, this is where your fortune's going to be. So you've got to live with that. Well, you also realise that you can, by your success, you can inspire those people and you can then do something.

40:45And I know you've done lots of charitable things where you can give back as well and use your platform in a way. That was a hope. So even though I felt really guilty about that, I did have those wise moments where I thought, do you know what? I can make a, generally can make a difference now. So absorb it, take it on and actually have this. And I use it, I say, just have that in your kit box, you know. And then when push comes to shove and you need to pull out something, you go, oh, yeah, it's a great memory. It's a great circumstance, how I felt emotionally about it and everything else. So I've got all these experiences that are in one big kit bag and it allows us now today, for example, to be able to talk about all sorts of issues.

41:27And to know that the rest of your life now is kind of at a different pace, to use a pun, because obviously you've experienced such highs, but also lows. And as you said just before, you're clearly happy being on your own right now. So it feels like you're in a great place with what you have going on. Yeah, and I was trying to explain to somebody, when you appreciate and reflect on your own real personal space, your personal life, and you realise in this particular world, there's not many opportunities where you generally do something for yourself and you get all the benefit. Most things that you do, you do for other people.

42:09And it's a wonderful feeling when you know you're absolutely doing it for yourself. You know, you throw up the covers in the morning and you go, right, what am I going to do for me? Do you know what? I'm just going to have a cup of tea because that's all I want. It's just a cup of tea and I'm going to feel so great that I'm making myself a cup of tea. It's the simple things. Those real simple things. And that maybe is partly why you had places all over the world at one point, didn't you, when I first started working with you. Yeah. But then you came back to Cardiff. Yes. You came back home and there was your parents, obviously, and your sister and it felt like you needed that.

42:44I did. You needed that grounding. I did. And I absolutely loved coming back home to Wales fully and settling. You know, I decided to make my home that I bought years ago my absolute base. And I've ripped it apart and created a home that's for me. The call of the globetrotter is no more. It's definitely slowing down. It's absolutely slowing down. And I adore the fact that I've recognized that young enough that I can enjoy my environment and where I am at. And bizarrely, I know I've mentioned my sister a new size, but Suzanne is a huge, huge part of my life as a role model. I think she's one of the wisest people that I've ever known and met.

43:29Luckily, she's my sister. So I've got it on tap, right? In that sense. And I remember when I finished all the refurbishment house, she came in and she was like, yeah, I think you did a really good job. And she goes, do you know what? I'll just be honest. If anything happens to you, I'm moving in. So that you clearly know. Because you want somebody to enjoy your home. You know, in that sense. I just wet myself laughing. I was like, yeah, you could say that. It's fine. I'm not going anywhere in a rush. So that's my plan. Just to finish off, do you feel age has changed? that when you look back to your dad at your age, you know, and how the expectations that you have for your life and what you still want to do and you're still working at the top of your game.

44:10Yeah, I laugh about that. I generally do. Because sometimes when I'm just folding myself up as I'm sitting down on the sofa, for example, I was thinking, there is no way daddy at nearly 60 could have done this. I remember coaching and I was, when I was last year, and I was looking after Andrew Pozzi. and I was still hurdling, demonstrating and hurdling for him. And every time I'd come back to him, he'd look at me and go, thank the Lord, because I felt I was going to A &E now. And I was like, it's all good. You were still going over the hurdles. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I just absolutely loved that.

44:45Do you have a physical goal that you think, I'm going to do this at 60? No, I don't. I really don't. I think all I just want to do is, as I say, keep as flexible, as range as I possibly can, keep as well as I possibly can, and still keep enjoying living. Sounds like you are. Colin Jackson, thank you so much. It has been an absolute joy. And thanks for being so honest and kind of dipping into those really raw moments as well that have clearly served you very well to be the man you are today. Thank you very much. And thank you for listening.

45:26Thank you.