I slept with my gold medal.
Going to the Olympics as a Maasai I want to make them proud because, after the warm welcome they gave me when I went back and being their leader, I want to also be the warrior in the Olympics. That will be something good because that will be the first Olympic gold medal for the Maasai.
You can’t just measure yourself solely on winning that medal. It has to be on the everyday experience.
There was a lot of politics going on, and Ireland were denied an Olympic gold medal in 2008.
I think the biggest thing was that I was putting pressure on myself leading up to Beijing. Now I am learning how to take that pressure off and seeing this as an incredible opportunity, but not like, ‘I absolutely have to medal.’
It’s kind of like I won a gold medal with my family.
I’ve never felt that I was less of an athlete or not accomplished athletically because I didn’t win an Olympic medal. It’s definitely something I would have liked to have added to my resume, but at the same time I think I can look back at my athletic career and feel that I was one of the best.
A lot of skaters hole themselves up in hotels and focus – and that’s great, and that may work for them. But for me, having the Olympic experience was as great as winning the medal. I have so many memories of living in the village and meeting other athletes, seeing other sports, and feeling the energy. It’s so magical.
You have to beat the king to be the king. No one is going to hand you a gold medal.
I don’t know if it’ll happen four years from now or 52 years from now, but our job is to make an Olympic gold medal happen at some point for the history of the U.S. program.
I’ve dominated past competitions, but I’ve sweated blood and tears for every medal. I take nothing for granted, and I’m fully focused on doing my best.
Anthony Bourdain. He make the food, he make the world news. He know who is the real gold medal. He know what I can do. I know what he can do. He like the Jesus. He the best.
As a teenager I had no idea that I had the potential to win an Olympic gold medal and my athletic career developed only by lucky circumstances.
I have a goal in front of me and that is to achieve a gold medal at the Olympics in air rifle shooting.
When it actually came to everyone clamoring to see the medal and talking about the experience, I began to feel empty inside. I started to feel that this piece of metal was worth more than I was as a person, and I think this began a spiral for me.
I should have got a medal at Neunkirchen, my first club in Germany.
I made a gym, it’s the best gym in Nicaragua, I have kids that this year July 6th through the 11th will be fighting and then will go on to the Central American Games and I’m sure at least one will win a gold medal.
If there was an Oppression Olympics, I would win the gold medal. I’m Palestinian, Muslim, I’m female, I’m disabled, and I live in New Jersey.
We came from a poor, poor family and for them to see me winning a trophy in front of 90,000 people and getting a medal would be something.
Actually, I always dreamed about getting a gold medal in the 100-meter freestyle in Olympic swimming. I always thought that would be the epic award in sports to get.
You know Sarkozy offered me the Legion d’honneur medal? I refused. People said I refused because I don’t like Sarkozy, but that’s ridiculous. I refused because I don’t like decorations – except on women.
I always said I wanted an Olympic medal. It’s the pinnacle of any athlete’s career.
In 2016 I was fresh and raw and it was grit and determination which got me to the gold medal. Nobody really knew me and what I was capable of.
In 1962, my injury wasn’t because of violence; I just kicked the ball and it happened. And that was OK because Brazil won; I didn’t have any difficulty in accepting that. I still got a medal because I’d played two games.
Getting a medal is not a small feat, irrespective of what color it is.
From Clara Barton’s tireless work founding the American Red Cross to the first female Medal of Honor winner, Dr. Mary Walker, to our first female combat fighter pilot Lt. Kara Hultgreen, no list of American heroes is complete without the names of some of these extraordinary women.
I hope I can compete in one or two Olympics in my career. Of course I would like to win a medal, but just being there would be awesome.
My dad used to be a goalie. He actually won a bronze medal with Team Canada in 1956.
While starving refugees in Homs were providing target practice for government snipers, Bashar al-Assad’s strongest international backer was in Sochi, at the Iceberg Skating Palace, visibly moved, smiling with deep satisfaction, as the Russians beautifully glided and leaped their way to the gold medal in the team event.
The Olympics is a special event and winning is very important. For me as a world record holder and world champion, the only thing I am missing is the Olympic gold medal and that is what I want to achieve in my career.
The only thing better than winning a gold medal is going to Heaven.
London was the hardest Olympic Games, and before it, I was really just hoping to win a medal, even if it was not the gold medal. At the same time, I have my next target. I am not settling for three golds in a row. I now want to try for a fourth.
I had already been into my professional career for six years and had not won an individual gold medal at the Olympics. There was a tremendous amount of pressure going into 1996 to get it done.
I’ve won a world championship, I know how that feels. I don’t know how it feels to win a gold medal. I want to feel that; I want to know that.
When you go to a shooting competition, you don’t know what medal you’re going to finish with.
So I went in front of the judge, and I had my St. Jude prayer book in my pocket and my St. Jude medal. And I’m standing there and that judge said I was found guilty, so he sentenced me to what the law prescribed: one to 14 years.
One of my proudest moments in life was earning the valedictorian medal in high school. I worked so hard for it!
I always feel I had a very lucky life. For example, I sure didn’t want to go in the army: when I was drafted in the Korean War, I wanted to go as a photographer. But luckily, they put me in the infantry – luckily because the official photographer was photographing the medal awarding and all the official situations.
I always look back to my first Olympic medal in 2004 in Athens. I was very new to the sport, and it was my first big win at the Olympics.
I got a bronze medal and I can’t complain about that, the only African-American to get a medal in the Winter Olympics.
I certainly wouldn’t be a dental hygienist – they should get the Medal of Honor just to look at people’s gums.
Qualifying for the Olympics is probably harder than winning a medal at the Olympics.
In 1995, I proposed the Harvard Arts Medal. The idea was to celebrate the fact that, although it’s rare, Harvard men and women do go into the creative arts. Over the years we’ve had major, major figures, like Jack Lemmon, John Updike, Yo-Yo Ma, and Bonnie Raitt.
I’ve seen the success of Mary Kom at the Olympics… We stayed in the same flat. If she can win a medal after being the mother of two, why can’t I?
This medal goes to show that you don’t always have to have the best facilities, the best organisation, the best of everything to achieve.
The pressure is high because of course… everyone’s expecting me to win the gold medal in Tokyo.
Don’t worry, everyone – I’m not going to be just this silly little idiot who thinks he’s ‘it,’ who has been to the Olympics, won a gold medal and come back thinking he’s ‘it.’ That isn’t me, trust me.
When I participated in Rio Olympics in 2016, I failed to grab a medal. But it was a learning experience.
It’s about never giving up until your hand is on the wall. I think people who get complacent, who think that they are in front, a sloppy touch, can cost you that elusive medal, just as much as the people who are gunning for you. If you believe you can get there right to the very end, miracles do happen.
I have learned from the first Olympics, of course. When I went to my first Olympic Games, I experienced all of the pressure and was able to win the gold medal. I try not to feel the pressure, and I try not to be nervous when I am on the ice and when I compete.
I think if I am to win an Olympic medal I’ll have to score like I did today.
It would be nice to win a gold medal and then sit back and watch Mark win one, too.
Dangal’ movie has been made on our lives in which two daughters win a medal for the country. It just shows that the times are changing and people’s attitudes are changing and if it is changing because of us then we are very happy about it.
Most coaches would consider leading a team to an Olympic gold medal a capper for a pretty good year. The same goes for winning an NCAA national championship. Or a FIBA world championship. Mike Krzyzewski, head coach of the Duke Blue Devils and Team USA, led teams to each of these honors… within about 24 months.
I always come into these competitions hoping to come away with a gold medal. I won’t relax until I have the gold medal around my neck.
After I came back from London with a gold medal, my focus straight away was to defend it four years on.
