"I'm fresh, I'm ready. I've raced 5 times this year, normally it is more like a dozen."

"It was the same last year for the World Championships. Last year, Paris was the one that counted. This year, Athens is the one that counts. If you win Athens, you can lose every other race in the season before and after but it does not matter. I'm on a mission to win here in Athens."

On the expected winning time required to take gold at Athens 2004:

"Definitely this year it will take under 10 seconds to be the Olympic champion. The question of who will do it, we do not know yet. Everyone has been running fast before the Games. I'm saying they are going to have to do it here in Athens."

On the competition:

"I don't care about the field until they get to the final. Everyone in the final poses a threat, not before. As world champion, every competitor is looking to kill you, literally. There are a lot of games in the heats."

On whether his rivals treat him a serious threat:

"I don't think Maurice GREENE (USA) really does. And not just him, there are a lot of other people too, because they see the winning time in the world championships and think, 'that's not good enough'. But I say, on the day, that is all it took. It does not really matter if you run fast or not. The idea of a race is that you set off together to find a winner. If you take half an hour to win the 100m, hey, you are still the winner."

On being world champion, but not world-record holder:

"Some people say that the world championship winning time was slow, and that you have to break the world record in order to be considered the best, but I don't want to be the world-record holder, I want to win. I would rather be able to run comfortably and have a long career in track and field than run a ridiculously low time and then not be able to compete for the rest of my life."

On why he started sprinting:

"I was told, 'if you run fast, you get girls.' It worked."