Olympic mindset helped me recover from stroke, says Michael Johnson

The 51-year-old told the BBC that in hospital it took him 15 minutes to walk 200 metres - the distance for which he won the gold medal at the 1996 Atlanta Games.

"Doctors said the best chance of recovery was to immediately get into physical therapy. I did that two days after the stroke and I got out of bed with assistance and got behind the walker around the hospital - and ironically it was around 200m," he said. "I timed it and it took me around 15 minutes to cover that distance.

"Ordinarily that would be very disconcerting and I would have no hope - having been the fastest person in the world at that distance - but I was very encouraged.

"For the next few weeks I went back into an Olympic mindset and focusing on having the best training session I can today and using it to be better and get better.

"I could regain co-ordination and balance which I had lost. I did not lose any strength. Then I was getting back to walking properly, then more dynamic exercises and then into running."

Johnson is the only man in history to win gold at the 200m and 400m distances at the same Games, which he achieved in Atlanta, having won 4x400m relay gold at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992. At the 2000 Games in Sydney, he defended his 400m title becoming - at 33 years 12 days - the oldest champion of any track event shorter than 5,000m at that time.

He said that he had felt a tingling sensation down his left side following a workout, and went straight to hospital, where he was sent for an MRI scan.

"It was a lot of emotions. Once I was told I had suffered a stroke and I could not walk things get immediately real," he recalled. "You start to think: 'What is my life going to be like going forward? What is my quality of life going to be like? Will I be able to dress myself? Will I be able to take care of myself or will my loved ones have to take care of me?'

"I had a great team of doctors and they said that is what all stroke victims ask but unfortunately there is no answer to the questions - only time will tell. Some people make a full recovery, some make a partial recovery and how much time that takes there is no answer. That is difficult to hear and pretty scary.

"You go from fear to anger asking, 'Why did this happen to me?' The first thing doctors say is not to smoke, lose weight, work out and get fit - well, that is what I was doing when this happened - and eat right. I was doing all the right things so I was pretty angry for half a day."

Johnson's application of the Olympic mindset has served him well so far.

"I was achieving tiny incremental improvements and it gave me hope," Johnson added. "I told my wife I was confident of making a full recovery and not only will I do that, I will do it faster than anybody else has done before.

"Almost three months on now from the stroke and I am pretty much back to normal and back to work. I am feeling good and I was really lucky. It has been quite an experience."