Tanni Grey-Thompson

Perhaps we need to redefine our idea of role models; they're not always elite athletes whose success might seem too distant or unachievable. Sometimes it's our friend who just smashed her first 10k, or our Zumba teacher who is enthusiastic, encouraging and real.

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My passions are sport, women in sport and disabled people, and they kind of end up not being political, so I can put a bit of a different spin on it.

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I remember trying to go to the cinema with my friends, so I must have been nine or 10, and being told I could not go in because I did not have an adult with me and my mum sending me back with my friends, because we had left, and mum going 'go back, go back, I am not taking you home, go and tell them that you have never spontaneously combusted.'

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I think the most important thing when training - whether you're looking to win a marathon or just become fitter and healthier - is to have a clear sense of what you want to achieve. Do you want to lose weight? Or improve your stamina? Or simply become more active?

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In the past, I admit, I have not been a strong supporter of our top footballers, who seem to get paid a ludicrous amount of money while many other athletes still struggle for good facilities in most parts of the U.K.

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At 70, my late father, Peter, underwent a foot amputation after surgical complications. There were suggestions that at his age being in a wheelchair was no life for him. Yet the time we had together after the operation was something I will always remember. In other words, his quality of life was misjudged.

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My husband Ian and I decided to try for a baby after the Sydney Paralympics, and I got pregnant quite quickly. But I hated every minute of being pregnant.

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My parents were amazing because they just did not tolerate discrimination and way before we talked about medical model or inclusion or any of that, they did not know any of that stuff, but they just knew that the right thing to do was to educate and include me in society.

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Wheelchairs get lost or damaged during transit because some staff don't always understand how important the equipment is, or the cost of it. And even if it is brought to the gate promptly after landing, there may not be enough trained staff to help get you into it.

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Twenty years in sport has given me a broad perspective on life, bringing me into contact with a variety of social issues, and with those experiences have come insight and knowledge.

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I had Carys by Caesarean for medical reasons. I've got narrow hips and I'm a bit twisted.

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I really do not want any visually impaired people to be injured, but I really dislike tactile paving, especially when it is cracked or on an uneven or steep dropped kerb. The ones I dislike most have the metal buttons that have little chance of wearing down.

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Through my professional life as both an athlete, and latterly with organisations such as the Youth Citizenship Commission, I've seen first hand the power that sport possesses as one of the few vehicles that actually engages with young people and gets them interacting with each other and the communities in which they live.

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Legacy means so many things: accessible venues, transport, better awareness in schools, and a wonderful event which establishes healthy lives for another generation of disabled people. From that base, elite sport can emerge.

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Volunteering is about doing good things - good things for good causes, and good things for good volunteers.

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I mean, I hope I intimidate the others on the track. I'm the only one who does a warm-up lap. I heard the other athletes didn't like it, they felt threatened by it. So I kept doing it. On the day of competition I don't talk to anyone I compete against either. I'm there to win races, not to be friends with people.

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I'm too much of a coward for plastic surgery, but if I could wave a magic wand and change something, it would be my ears. They are large and they stick out - my left ear farther than my right.

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I wouldn't have had a sporting career if it hadn't been for the volunteers who agreed to coach me, as a teenager, growing up in south Wales, at a time when others were telling me that wheelchair racing wasn't really athletics.

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I first competed for Great Britain in wheelchair racing in 1987 and for twenty years after that. For me, the passion came from the fact that I really loved competing and training to be better. And of course - like most sportspeople - I really wanted to win.

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As a wheelchair user and a frequent traveller, of course I have my own collection of horror stories.

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Quotes by Tanni Grey-Thompson