Sebastian Coe Quotes

• Throughout my athletic career, the overall goal was always to be a better athlete than I was at the moment – whether next week, next month or next year. The improvement was the goal. The medal was simply the ultimate reward for achieving that goal.

  Sebastian Coe

  Athlete, Next Week, Years

  52 Copy quote

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

  Sebastian Coe

  Motivational, Self, Track

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• Competing is exciting and winning is exhilarating, but the true prize will always be the self-knowledge and understanding that you have gained along the way.

  Sebastian Coe

  Winning, Self, Discipline

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• Sport is a universal language, building more bridges between people than anything else I can think of.

  Sebastian Coe

  Sports, Thinking, Bridges

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• Vision is a romantic thing. We have got into 'talent identification'. I am much more interested in passion - finding people who are really excited about doing something.

  Sebastian Coe

  Passion, People, Vision

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• The nine inches right here; set it straight and you can beat anybody in the world.

  Sebastian Coe

  Running, World, Nine

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• Inspirational leaders need to have a winning mentality in order to inspire respect. It is hard to trust in the leadership of someone who is half-hearted about their purpose, or only sporadic in focus or enthusiasm.

  Sebastian Coe

  Winning, Order, Focus

  "The Winning Mind: What it takes to become a true champion". Book by Sebastian Coe, January 3, 2010.

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• Tomorrow is another day, and there will be another battle!

  Sebastian Coe

  Inspirational, Running, Battle

  "Olympian ambitions" by Clare Balding, www.theguardian.com. February 12, 2005.

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• If you lived in Sheffield and were called Sebastian, you had to learn to run fast at a very early stage.

  Sebastian Coe

  Running, Sheffield, Stage

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• World records are only borrowed.

  Sebastian Coe

  Running, Records, World

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• I've always felt that long, slow distance produces long, slow runners.

  Sebastian Coe

  Inspirational, Motivational, Running

  12 Copy quote

• It is to create the best Games the world has ever seen by unlocking the UK's unrivalled passion for sport, by delivering the best Games for athletes to compete in, by showcasing London's unmatched cultural wealth and diversity and by creating a real and lasting legacy.

  Sebastian Coe

  Sports, Real, Passion

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• Blink and you miss a sprint. The 10,000 meters is lap after lap of waiting. Theatrically, the mile is just the right length: beginning, middle, end, a story unfolding.

  Sebastian Coe

  Running, Waiting, Missing

  "An Exclusive Club". Interview with Gary Smith, www.si.com. June 27, 1994.

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• Nobody ever becomes an expert parent. But I think good parenting is about consistency. Its about being there at big moments, but its also just the consistency of decision making. And its routine.

  Sebastian Coe

  Thinking, Decision, Parent

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• It is really important that we promote competitive support in schools. It is very important that we recognise that has to be underpinned by good quality physical education and by getting people into patterns of exercise.

  Sebastian Coe

  School, Exercise, People

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• Quite simply the Games are the biggest opportunity sport in this country has ever had. It is one that we must not squander.

  Sebastian Coe

  Sports, Country, Opportunity

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• We need to be confident. We need not to blink.

  Sebastian Coe

  Needs, Be Confident, Blink

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• To anyone who has started out on a long campaign believing that the gold medal was destined for him, the feeling when, all of a sudden, the medal has gone somewhere else is quite indescribable.

  Sebastian Coe

  Believe, Bronze Medal, Somewhere Else

  Sebastian Coe, Nicholas Mason (1988). “The Olympians: A Quest for Gold: Triumphs, Heroes & Legends”

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• I became a great runner because if you're a kid in Leeds and your name is Sebastian you've got to become a great runner.

  Sebastian Coe

  Running, Kids, Names

  13 Copy quote

• The Paralympians have lifted the cloud of limitation.

  Sebastian Coe

  Clouds, Limitation

  "It's been a blast: Farewell to the superhumans as one BILLION watch Paralympics finale" by Jeremy Armstrong, Laurie Hanna, www.mirror.co.uk. September 9, 2012.

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• I might have to consider coaching- I'm getting too old to be a world class runner and my mind isn't gone enough to become an official.

  Sebastian Coe

  Class, Coaching, Mind

  11 Copy quote

• This is not going to be business as usual. This is business unusual

  Sebastian Coe

  Usual, Unusual

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• I believed that we had to answer the question: Why are we doing this? And it wasn’t until we started to articulate, internally as an organisation, that it was about using the Games to inspire young people to participate in sports that we each understood what we had to do.

  Sebastian Coe

  Sports, Games, People

  4 Copy quote

• I don't think I am a workaholic. I prefer to keep busy. It is better than the alternative.

  Sebastian Coe

  Thinking, Alternatives, Workaholic

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• I wouldn't have raced a horse. But you'll then throw back at me that Jesse Owens raced against a horse and he's one of my heroes so I'm not going to say it was a silly stunt. I know too much about horses. They're highly unreliable and they've got brains the size of golf balls.

  Sebastian Coe

  Horse, Silly, Hero

  "Lord Coe". Interview with Barney Ronay, www.theguardian.com. May 2, 2008.

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