FORMER World 110m hurdles champion Colin Jackson sat down with the Brecon & Radnor Express to discuss his career.

The Cardiff born athlete spoke about the early years in his career when he opened a dedicated exam centre for the UK’s leading online school, InterHigh.

The former Great Britain Olympian has become an ambassador for the online school which has its head office in Crickhowell.

Its exam centre in Abergavenny is intended to be a stress-free environment and will also be opened up for private candidates and children in home education to use.

BBC pundit Jackson, who was a member of Brecon Athletics Club, said he would have appreciated a similar service to InterHigh in his early years. Students from all walks of life study at InterHigh as well as sporting proteges, singers and actors including Britain’s youngest entrepreneur, a Russian pop star and Game of Thrones star Bella Ramsey – who is about to feature in the last series of the HBO hit as Lady Lyanna Mormont.

InterHigh pupils from all corners of the globe will travel to Abergavenny to sit exams at the new facility, which is one of just a few private exam centres in Wales.

In the interview, which can be read in full in this week's Brecon & Radnor Express, Jackson also discusses his failure to win gold at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and the time he competed for Brecon Athletics Club in a Welsh League meeting at the club's Penlan track.

Colin Jackson on the defining moment of his career: "It’s always the World Junior Championships and people don’t believe me, when you’ve won so many other things right."

Jackson won the 110m hurdles at the first ever Athletics World Junior Championships in Athens in 1986 said: "I set a new European Junior record, become the second fastest in history over the barriers at the particular age, it told me a lot about myself."

On fellow British hurdler Tony Jarrett, who was usually ranked second in the British rankings behind Jackson, and claimed silver when Jackson won his first senior world title in a world record time, in 1993: "It was always important to have somebody like Tony around. It meant I always had to stay on my toes, in my own country. There was never a stage I would go into races thinking, ooh I can beat Tony, I’m gonna beat Tony, I never just thought that, I had to make it happen.

"That race in Stuttgart (1993 World Championships) he became the fourth fastest high hurdler of all time so that was the man who was just down the street, the fourth fastest of all time. So if I wanted to keep my level I really had to keep pushing."

On former 1984 Olympic 110m hurdler and future Welsh rugby international Nigel Walker: "Nigel was best in the country when I joined the group, we were coached by the same coach Malcolm Arnold, and when I joined his group Nigel was number one in the country so I was lucky enough straight away to be guided by somebody who was a leader.

"I remember him saying to us he was going to retire (from athletics) and do rugby and all of us tried to dissuade him. Nobody persuaded him, nobody. We were like ’don’t do it you’re going to get broken’. He was phenomenal but we we were right because he did get broken."

On becoming a full time athlete: "I asked my parents if I could give up my (electrician apprenticeship) course so I could do my athletics because I really wanted to be a professional athlete and Malcolm was trying his best to have me not be a professional athlete, for him the most important thing was get my education first and then go on to be a professional athlete."

On working as an electrician: "Luckily I never needed to. I re-wired my coach’s house. There’s some house in Bargoed now that has my wiring and I haven’t heard anybody’s been electrocuted so it must have been alright.

On how he was persuaded to join Brecon Athletics Club by former Gwernyfed High PE teacher Margaret Edwards: "I was looking for another club and I was literally training at the track in Swansea with my training colleague Bethan Edwards and her mum came up to me and said ’Oh Col’ are you still unattached?' I was like ’Yeah’ she said ’would you join Brecon?’ I was like ’yeah’. She looked at me and thought ’you’re joking’."

For the full interview with Colin Jackson in which he discusses how he lost the 1992 Barcelona Olympic final despite being the heavily fancied favourite read this week’s Brecon & Radnor Express – on sale now