Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
The only person to hold world records in both the 200m and 400m simultaneously, a five-time Olympic gold medalist, now a commentator.
On the island
Eight records
It's kind of a victory song. It's it's all about, you know, taking the opportunity and capitalizing on the opportunity and Ordinarily, I'm not a real big Eminem fan, but as a lyricist, I mean, his ability to take words and and rhyme and put them together is amazing, but I like the message.
Ain't No Stoppin' Us NowFavourite
Love this song. I listened to it a lot growing up. My brother and my three sisters, there are five of us, and when we were growing up, we would always listen to music and dance, and this was one of our favorite songs. It reminds me a lot of my childhood growing up.
This is my dad's. My dad was always a big Al Green fan. My dad is still my hero. I always wanted to be like my dad. The thing that I looked up to and the thing that I saw in him that I wanted to be was that he was always in control.
So I've always been a big Joe Cocker fan. I've collected just about everything that he's ever made, and this is one of my favorite.
Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing
I grew up listening to Aretha Franklin. My parents, my mother, my father both loved Aretha Franklin as an artist. Her voice is incredible. Ain't nothing like the real thing. That's one of my favorites, and that's what we'll hear now.
I listened to Tupac in this particular song, Me Against the World, before every race. That was kind of the mindset that I wanted to be in. And so I always had my headphones on in my focus and I always listened to that song because that was the mindset I wanted to be in.
Ray Charles is probably I would say Ray Charles is my all time favorite artist. And what he sings about is really special. So I became a Ray Charles fan actually when I was in college. And from there I've collected just about everything that he's ever made.
this is Endless Flight, and this is from the soundtrack for the movie Babel, which was a really good movie about how decisions that people make affect themselves and other people, not just people around them, people that they don't even know on the other side of the world. It's really cool. But this song is all about the music, and it's just beautiful.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:57You once said that, as strong as my legs are, it is my mind that has made me a champion. Tell me about that.
Well, I think the thing is with great athletes, you know, there is certainly a mental component to achieving success as an athlete. And I think that people say, is it what percentage of athletic success is physical and what percentage is mental? And I think you have to strive to be one hundred percent proficient in both areas.
Presenter asks
4:09Was that a difficult thing to do, to step away from [athletics] when you retired?
I was actually quite the opposite. I was ready. After 1996, I made the decision then that I would retire after 2000. I was Olympic Gold Medalist. I was still ranked number one in the world. ... For me, it was um I always wanted to get out of the sport before that happened and um I was getting older. But also I think the the biggest thing was I had I had done everything that I wanted to do in the sport.
Presenter asks
6:15Are you a highly strategic individual?
Yeah, to a fault. ... I think you probably miss out in all honesty. As I've gotten older, I think you you probably miss out on some of the more passionate moments in life and some of the more spontaneous moments of life because you want to not end up in any situation where you're not in control. So that whole planning thing comes out of being a control freak.
The keepsakes
The book
The luxury
I'd take my McLaren SLR. Couldn't drive it on the desert, I guess, but I'd just look at it.
Presenter asks
9:36What are your very early memories of life at home [in Dallas]?
Both my parents are only children. My father wasn't really close to his parents who had divorced. ... And so we were very, very close. Just my parents, my brother, my sisters, and my grandparents on my mother's side. We didn't have much. We had everything that we needed. We had food, we had a house to live in, we had clothes. ... But beyond the necessary items there wasn't a lot of uh you know extra
Presenter asks
20:06How does it feel to see your [200m] title wrestled from you by [Usain Bolt]?
Um for me it wasn't as I think most people imagined it would be. I didn't feel any different the next day. I watched it and I was totally amazed watching it. And I was glad to be in the stadium to see it live because I'm such a fan of athletics and always have been. The fact that it was my record that was broken, first of all, there was nothing that I could do to keep him from breaking it. But the other thing is, is that there was nothing that I was doing on a daily basis to keep it.
Presenter asks
23:15What was the problem there [with Carl Lewis]?
Carl was a problem. I just never liked Carl's kind of arrogance on the track. So I just never was a fan from that perspective. When I came into the sport, he was the biggest star in the sport. He was a superstar. And I was poised to take over. And I was making my move, and he didn't want to relinquish it. ... he started to say things about me that were, you know, that I was boring, I didn't have enough personality, and I would never be a big superstar in the sport. That wasn't really nice. So I thought, you know, I'll get my chance one day. Eventually he has to race me ... And when he does, when we line up, I'll take my revenge then. And we did, and I did.
“I wanted to be the best. I wanted to be the best I could be. In order to be the best you can be, you have to take advantage of every opportunity. And every day of training is a is an opportunity. And every missed day is a missed opportunity.”
“Every time I'm introduced now as a four-time Olympic gold medalist, it pisses me off. Because he didn't need to be using performance-enhancing drugs to run fast. Number one. Two, we didn't need him on the relay.”
“at the end of the day, what's most important is that my son feels like, hey, I had a good dad and hopefully he feels about me the same way I feel about my father and that I've made the same type of influence and impact. That's what's really important.”