Now I'm an old Christmas tree the roots of which have died. They just come along and while the little needles fall off me replace them with medallions.

Former Olympians also get paid to make appearances. Many of them won their medals in an era when Olympic success didn't go hand-in-hand with financial success.

Team GB's success at the Beijing Olympics can in part be said to have been made in Manchester. For example all the cycling medal winners trained at Manchester's velodrome the National Cycling Centre.

Actually I always dreamed about getting a gold medal in the 100-meter freestyle in Olympic swimming. I always thought that would be the epic award in sports to get.

Three events. Three gold medals. I was news big news in the sports world.

Gold medals aren't really made of gold. They're made of sweat determination and a hard-to-find alloy called guts.

I was at the Olympic Games winning medals and I still doubted my image. I doubted what I looked like. That's sad.

In the military I could exercise the power of being automatically respected because of the medals on my chest not because I had done anything right at the moment to earn that respect. This is pretty nice. It's also a psychological trap that can stop one's growth and allow one to get away with just plain bad behavior.

It really means a lot that I won the gold medal - but I woke up the next morning expecting to feel different. I felt the same.

No matter what like I couldn't - I could break a world record get an Olympic gold medal and my mom would be like you could have done better. But you looked pretty. That's what she says all the time.