P. T. Usha

In the early 1980s, top athletes hardly got the kind of exposure needed.

Although I am training 12-year-olds at my School of Athletics, they will hit the track only after three or four years.

I feel running is far easier than coaching.

If you have speed you need not be only in athletics, you can choose any other discipline.

I always believe that speed is the essence for any sport.

Spare a thought for people like me who sweated it out for our moment of glory and the joy we brought for the country. I had earned my records the hard way.

Athletes like Milkha Singh, Sriram Singh, T.C. Yohannan and I set our records at international meets under stringent conditions, against the stiffest competition.

Udaya Laxmi is not the only athlete who has been asked by the administrators to go after my records; they now want to take away the only record I hold, in the 400m hurdles that I set at the final of the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984.

After winning a medal, many athletes give up and go into oblivion, the reason being lack of encouragement.

There is no dearth of talent in India, but there is no encouragement and facilities to train.

I had to travel long distances to train on a synthetic track, which added to residual fatigue.

After a hard training day, I used to massage myself. That meant recovery was slow.

If I missed bronze by whisker, it was due to lack of experience.

Compared to our era, facilities in athletics have increased manifold. But contemporary athletes are not mentally tough. The new generation wants everything easily, but it is not possible in athletics.

Athletes will get result with training and proper exposure. Money should be spent on them for exposure. We should send them for competitions in Europe.

Body is a God-gift.

Nobody talks about my contribution to the sport. Nobody talks about the 101 medals I have won in my 20-year career. Nobody talks about the efforts I made to attain those heights.

I have heard some people saying that I continue to run for the sake of money. What is money to me? I have enough of it.

Two decades in athletics is a long time in sports.

Before going to the L.A. Olympics, I had participated in only two competitions in 400m hurdles. Yet I came close to a medal. So if your mind is strong, you can achieve anything.

If the mind says the injury is nothing, it will mean nothing. If the mind says competitions are nothing, it will mean nothing.

If you win even one tournament or medal, people can think they have become big.

An athlete is responsible whatever she takes - be it food supplement or whatever.

In the '80s, there was this talk about a thrower whose urine was sent for testing after a meet and it tested positive for pregnancy! Apparently, his urine was replaced with that of a female nurse at the clinic. I don't know if the story was true, but in those primitive days of dope testing India, you could not have laughed it off.

I was part of the Indian contingent that went to Karachi for an invitational meet, before the Moscow Olympics of 1980 and I was taking B-Complex in liquid form, as advised by Dr. P.M.K. Nambiar, a cardiac specialist based in Kannur.

In the sports hostel, I would not eat the boiled egg and would store it away in my bag. But eventually, Nambiar sir found out and gave me a yelling. There were so many eggs in my bag and they started smelling.

Medal in Olympics is not small thing. There is a need to develop sportsperson especially athletes from the grass-root level to win medal in Olympics. The athletes should start to develop from the school level.

It is great to see our young athletes get an opportunity to run on excellent tracks at the Medical College Stadium. And I am happy to see spectators coming in large numbers to cheer our young champions. That is something you would not see in many parts of Kerala.

It was those medals I won at Kottayam that gave me the confidence to dream it big in athletics.

I was traveling from Calicut to Patiala and was tired. I got several calls and then came to know that Milkha Singh had passed away. I felt very bad because we have lost Milkha ji.

I was shocked after hearing the news of Milkha Singh's death. He was a great athlete... an inspiring personality.

Unlike cricket or tennis, athletics receive no money and so it remains a poor man's sport.

I wanted to give everything that I lacked in my childhood to young children of my village. I had only talent but no scientific training, facilities or infrastructure to help.

Money cannot buy the self-actualization of one's feelings.

At the Usha School of Athletics, our sole aim is to earn Olympic gold medals for India.

I have knocked at almost every door, from government offices to private companies, pleading for money and facilities to start my athletics school. It has been a tough mission. But I am thrilled that it is now a reality.

The saddest part of my career has been missing the Olympic medal by one-hundredth of a second.

Without Nambiar sir's guidance I would not have been able to achieve what I did for the country.

International Amateur Atheletic Federation had selected me in 1985 and 1986 as one of the best eight athletes in the world.

I was a vegetarian who would eat fish.

Only God can save Indian sports.

I brought hurdles, all ten of them, to the beach and had my hurdling sessions very close to the water. Those days, I trained on the beach for nearly three months every season with coach Nambiar. I used to run into the water, almost chasing the receding waves, and that was how I built up strength.

If you want to be an engineer, doctor or scientist in today's world, you need athletic ability in the body and mind.

There should ideally be a synthetic track in every district. Athletics is tough, and needs more support.

Cricket has come to take centerstage among all sports in the country today and it is therefore no surprise that the organizers are romping in added attractions, to cheer the crowd, in a bid to pay value for their money.

All I can say is that we cannot shut our eyes to Western culture if that is not going to suit ours.

Our actions, behavior, speech and for that matter anything that we do should strictly comply with our culture.

Ours is a country with diversified culture and centuries-old tradition, which have to be preserved at any cost.

May be someday a movie will be made on my life.

I saw 'Bhaag Milkha Bhaag' and I loved it.