I had already been into my professional career for six years and had not won an individual gold medal at the Olympics. There was a tremendous amount of pressure going into 1996 to get it done.

One of the main techniques I used was focusing on the goal and visualising myself competing in the race before the race started.

You can't control what the other athlete is going to do; you can't control anything except for your competition and how you execute the race or how you execute the task.

Rivalries don't necessarily mean races being close at major championships. I had a rivalry with Butch Reynolds for many years. I won all the races, but Butch was the world record holder before I came into the sport, he was extremely talented and he was the only other man running 43 seconds.