My Greatest: Johannes Floors

"My parents told me and taught me how to be, and just to focus on the important things of life"

What do you know about Germany’s four-time world champion, Johannes Floors?

The 23-year-old sprinter, who added a further three gold medals to his ever-growing tally at the Berlin 2018 European Championships, answers our questions in World Para Athletics’ new series, ‘My Greatest’.

My greatest inspiration

My parents – because my parents told me and taught me how to be, and just to focus on the important things of life.

My greatest sporting achievement

My gold medal at the World Championships in 2017 in London. It was just something that I needed to be confident about myself; to be confident about me and my training. Because I wasn’t able to compete in Rio at my favourite distance (400m) because I injured myself before. So the 400m in London was really, really important for me.

My greatest challenge

Just to learn running three times. Because I needed to learn to run as a child. I needed to learn to walk and go and run with prosthetic legs. [Floors, who was born with no fibulae and underdeveloped feet, chose to have both his lower legs amputated at age 16]. And I needed to learn to run with running blades. I don’t know how often I fell over and just needed to stand up again. Now here I am, and I’m really, really happy about it.

My greatest sporting moment (outside of individual moments!)

To be honest, it’s really, really difficult to decide what is an awesome achievement. You know, Usain Bolt running world records is awesome; but seeing your own football or hockey team winning gold is awesome too. I don’t know how to decide, so I can’t give you a correct answer!