Colin Jackson

Colin Jackson is a former Olympic 110m hurdler and an accomplished motivational after dinner speaker  and awards host.  Since the end of his career as an athlete, Colin has had a successful career as a TV presenter; he presents athletics during the Olympics and has appeared on a host of BBC TV programmes.

Colin began his athletics career as a talented decathlete, however he soon switched to 110m hurdling and won Gold at the 1986 World Junior Championships. Colin has been world champion three times and was unbeaten at the European Championships for 12 years. Following his success at the 1986 World Junior Championships, Colin competed in the 1988 Olympic Games and won a Silver Medal. He also won Gold at the 1990 and 1994 Commonwealth Games, Colin held the 110m world record for over ten years and his 60m World Record is yet to be broken.

Colin retired from athletics at the age of thirty-six in 2002 after the World Indoor Championships, at the end of his career he was considered to be one of the best hurdlers of all time. Colin began broadcasting for the BBC not long after his retirement, he joined the BBC sports production team and has presented athletics for the BBC ever since. Colin’s media career has gone from strength; he co-hosted ‘Born to Win’ with Sally Gunnell and has appeared on popular TV programmes such as ‘The Making of Me’, a show examining the factors that contributed to Colin’s success as an athlete. Colin also appeared in ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ and came in second place to cricketer, Darren Gough.

Colin was chosen to be an Ambassador for the London 2012 Olympic Games and was involved in the bidding process; he was at the IOC meeting in Singapore when the 2012 Olympic Games announcement was made.

Due to his experiences as an athlete and a TV presenter, Colin is both a motivational speaker  and a charismatic awards host. As a speaker, he uses his experiences as an athlete to motivate audiences, drawing examples from times when he faced injuries and pushed himself to his full ability. Colin used his past defeats as motivation, helping him to focus on improving for next time.