London 2012 blog

Amazing, amazing, amazing. That just about sums up last weekend for me at the European Indoor Athletics Championships in Birmingham.

The months of training, treatment and time spent away from my family paid off for me when I won my gold. But I was just as pleased to be part of the whole British team success.

It was a proud honour to be Men’s team captain on home soil. In my team talk before the competition started I said it looked like the strongest team I’d been part of at Indoor athletics in the past few years…how true that turned out to be.

Usually the Sprint races come first, but this year because they came later on I got to support other team members from Day 1.

I saw Kelly Sotherton win the first medal, which the crowd responded to with such high spirit. I’m sure that was the catalyst to so many great performances over the weekend, with so many personal bests and winning performances.

The fact that we got to the top of the medals table for the first time in the history of the championships reflected how important that support was - every athlete should be as privileged to receive it from a home crowd.

That’s why London 2012 can be so special for Team GB. I hope to be there cheering on our athletes with my family – and if anything can inspire young people to want to take up sport, seeing local talent bringing home medals is definitely up there.