Tanni Grey Thompson insists she is bloody-minded.

As probably the world's most successful wheelchair athlete, that sort of goes without saying. But she doesn't leave it behind on the track. She takes it home with her.

"If I decide at 11pm I want to paint a room in my house, I will," she grinned.

"Then, when I get bored, I stop. I have been known to leave half a room unpainted for a year!

My husband? Ian puts up with this stubborn trait - he just lets it wash over him."

Tanni - or, to go the whole hog, Dame Tanni Grey Thompson, breaker of 30 world records, winner of 11 gold Paralympic medals and holder of 24 honorary doctorates - was eyeing the plate of biscuits.

They had come with the pot of tea we had ordered for the 20 minutes I had with her before she left the hotel for a sound and lighting check at Colchester's Mercury Theatre.

She would be giving the annual Colchester Lecture, but not, she insisted, in the ripped jeans and trainers she was currently wearing.

"And I will have dried my hair by then - and put on make-up, so I will at least look the part."

She took another biscuit. They were disappearing alarmingly fast. She gave that lovely grin again.

"Oh, I love biscuits," she said, brushing the crumbs from her lap. "Now I have retired from competitive sport I can eat them whenever I want!"

Tanni retired last year, but only from the track. She has become a board member of UK Athletics, with the remit to lead the review into Britain's anti-doping policy.

This is high profile - and highly contentious - stuff. For the record, Tanni's personal take on drugs is somewhere right of zero tolerance. But officially adopting that outlook may not be good for athletics.

The present policy is muddled and, some would say, flawed because it does not tally with that of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Sprinter Dwain Chambers, pointed out Tanni, highlights the contradictions.

"After he had served his ban (for drug taking), he could compete at the World Championships for Britain, but not at any future Olympic Games, because the IOC has an automatic life ban on drug taking," she explained.

"Should we recommend this route? Maybe - but something has to be done."

That "something" includes educating athletes about drugs, pushing the drugs-is-cheating message, and letting athletes know that representing their country is a privilege, not a right.

Whether that would work in 21st century athletics, with its lucrative sponsorship contracts and advertisement deals, is a tricky one. But if anyone can resolve it, she can.

Away from the board, she is helping train young wheelchair athletes for the 2012 London Olympics, touring the lecture circuit, appearing on special charity editions of the Weakest Link and University Challenge, and bringing up her six-year-old daughter, Carys.

In fact, Carys is also Tanni's name. She was born Carys Davina Grey in Cardiff in July, 1969.

When her older sister first saw her, she wrinkled her face, turned to their mother and declared "Urgh - it's tiny". But it didn't come out as "tiny"; it came out as "tanni". Tanni, not Carys, stuck.

But Tanni wasn't only tiny. She had been born with spina bifida - spinal cord paralysis - and, while she could initially walk with the help of callipers and crutches, by the time she was seven she was in a wheelchair.

A career in athletics? It just didn't figure. But Tanni and her parents never looked on her wheelchair as a handicap. They saw it as a challenge. So, Tanni - naturally very competitive - tried wheelchair basketball; then she turned to the athletics track.

"It took years of training before I realised I was any good - and I so wanted to be good," she said.

"I wanted to represent my country, so I trained to compete, eventually clocking 250 miles in the wheelchair a week."

At 18, Tanni became a member of the British Wheelchair Racing Squad and was selected for her first World Wheelchair Games.

A year later, in 1988 at Seoul, she represented Britain and won her first Paralympic medal, the 400m bronze. The rest really is history.

Throughout, she has had the support of her family and her husband. Ian Thompson, an industrial chemist and former wheelchair athlete, was also her trainer.

"I don't miss the competing," she smiled. "It was time to go."

Time to go to the theatre, too, but not before I asked about Colchester being chosen by the London Committee for the Olympic Games (Locog) to play host, if chosen, to an overseas Olympic training squad.

"It isn't enough just to be in the book," she said, moving the wheelchair towards the car.

"There are so many other towns in the UK - and abroad - who want to attract these squads. Colchester has to go out there and market itself to the world - and it has to do it quickly."

And be bloody-minded about it as well.

  • The 28th Colchester Lecture was organised by Mosaic Publicity and sponsored by Birkett Long, Essex University, Colchester Institute, Hutton Construction, Nat West and PKF.