I remember watching the 2000 Sydney Olympics, with my nose right up to the screen, knowing there and then that I wanted a sporting career.

During an open water swim, it's easy to lose your direction. With all the splash, it can be quite hard to see the next buoy, so I look behind it for something bigger, like a tree or a building, and aim for that instead.

I raced in London in the 2012 Olympics, and it was incredible to be a part of, with half a million people watching and then later seeing kids going back to cycle.

The triathlon can be a very hard sport to train for. You see all the time when people try to improve - like their swim, for example: they train really hard for two to three weeks, and then when they go back to normal training, the swim goes back to where it was before.

I didn't have any friends. I was bullied. I didn't play sports.

I think the thing about that was I was always willing to work; I was not the fastest or biggest player but I was determined to be the best football player I could be on the football field and I think I was able to accomplish that through hard work.

Football is a competition to see who's the best, not a battle. It's not a war. When it ends, we're still alive.

I was lucky to come from a difficult area. It teaches you not just about football but also life.