It feels like gold to me

I get homesick especially because I miss her but I'm going home the day after tomorrow and I'm sure she'll be sick of the sight of me after about a week and a half.

In a way I'm 50 per cent. I am over the moon because I got a medal but I'm gutted because I let it slip.

I've dealt with a lot of stuff but I still got a personal best and I know I couldn't really have asked for any more.

I really need to sit down and analyse it because after my below-par performances in the pole vault and the javelin I was so down. Just to give you an idea I haven't thrown that badly in the javelin since I was about 16.

In both events, because I couldn't run up properly, I couldn't get anywhere near the pace I needed. And then in the javelin I had to try and give it a whack and in doing that I popped my elbow again, which was the major problem for me in Sydney last year.

The bottom line is I've only been professional for two years. I am so lucky to do something I enjoy.

The crowd have been fantastic. At one point when I was going out to get my lunch they were hanging off the back of the stand waving flags at me with slogans saying 'British athletes are the best'. And I thought, "I've got to do it".

I was in so much pain when I started the day that I had to have three more injections before the hurdles. I tried to warm up and stretch but I couldn't do anything. My groin was so swollen I could barely walk properly. I couldn't do it, but my coach Greg Richards turned around to me and just said "make sure you get on that line".

I did and then after two false starts I go and run a personal best. Just don't ask how I did it. It was another miracle.

But I wanted to show everyone watching, and especially Daley Thompson, that I could cope under pressure.

I am disappointed not to have beaten his British record. But he was one of the greats and it's not going to be easy to overturn it.

Yet I know I am a decathlete who can achieve 8700 points. There are just a few things that I need to sort out. Not a lot. It's just tidying things up and being more consistent.

If I had jumped five metres in the pole vault, which I expected, and thrown the distance I should have done in the javelin then coming into the 1500m Tomas Dvorak, Erki Nool and myself would all have been running for gold at the end.

But I didn't produce in two events and that has cost me the gold medal. I'm not sore about it. I performed to the best of my ability and have won my own personal gold medal here.

I finished the decathlon and that was more than I thought I'd do 24 hours ago. And although I won the silver medal in Seville this is a hell of a lot more satisfying. In Seville everything went to plan. I was cocky, Jack-the-lad and new to it all.

But now people know who I am and they are gunning for me in my strong events of the 400m and the long jump.

This year was all about putting the disappointment of Sydney behind me and I can't complain with how things have turned out with the bronze and, of course, the muchneeded money that goes with it.

But all it has done is made me realise what I am capable of and confirmed how desperate I am to get that gold next time.