Wisdom from the coach of Herb Elliot. Herb is one of Australia's great middle distance runners. Never beaten over 1,500 metres and broke the 4 minute mile 17 times.
"I never understood why sports people are not the most humble people in the world because in sport, which involves physical activity, what you are trying to do is to squeeze the last drop of physical power and performance out of yourself – without dying. And if you gonna do that the only way you can do it is confronting your weaknesses and you discover, when you really set the test for yourself, and you apply yourself against that test day after day after day, you discover that, the thing that is stopping you to be the winner isn't the competitor, it's yourself, it's your own weaknesses. And so you start to work on that, you are trying to build strength where there are weaknesses. So, in my view, top athletes should have a much more conscious view of their weaknesses than the normal population. And that should bring humility. So I don't really understand why some guys get a bit carried away with themselves when they do actually achieve what it is they set out to achieve."
the early years 