Beijing and Barcelona give Bernard appetite to leap into London folklore

How can you not be thinking about the Olympics? It’s the culture of an Olympics that is exciting, the gravitas, it’s the bigest sporting event the planet has ever seen, it’s hard to explain what all that comes with it. In Beijing it was the most expensive Olympics ever and when you are there you realise why and that it’s because this is no ordinary event. You make friends with other people from different sports so there’s obviously a community feel to the Olympic Games. There’s so many people living in the Olympic village, it was the first time I’d seen so many different sports, so many different cultures, so many different languages all in one place.

The Olympics is massive, it’s something that has created a boost to the economy and you look at the Yorkshire businesses involved in it and you can take a lot of pride from that. The amount of people bidding for tickets – I know a lot are disappointed – but it’s great that the British public have got such a desire to come to the Olympic Games and to support the British athletes.

I’ve got my sporting heroes, the athletes that came before me, and speaking to people like Linford Christie and Jonathan Edwards inspires me because they are the people I saw competing on tv.

Thornes Park was where it all started for me and where I dreamed of one day competing to the same standard as those guys on the biggest stages. If I can do well next year and some kids watch me and I can inspire them to do well then that will be all worthwhile. I do a lot of work now going into schools and speaking to the kids, trying to get them out of the XBox and Playstation generation and it’s nice for me to be able to give that back.

I’ve been in an Olympic final and while it’s good, it’s not really enough, so the aim is to go to London and win a medal.

My best result so far is a bronze at last year’s European Championships in Barcelona. The bronze was nice, but in terms of the World Championships in Daegu it would be great to go on and follow it up with another strong performance.

Next year is busy with a world indoors and European outdoors and then of course the one everyone wants to be a part of – the Olympics.