Castro was always using his athletes as a way of symbolically defeating the United States in the ring, and after these Cubans defeated Americans in the ring, they were turning down exorbitant sums to leave the island.
Training of female athletes is so new that the limits of female possibility are still unknown.
Nutrition is also a valuable component that can help athletes both protect themselves and improve performance.
The most important thing to me is to inspire all these athletes in the next generation.
It means a lot; I always love to represent my country, and it’s an honor to be part of the Olympics and be with other athletes.
I was always raised as a student first and an athlete second. I think that’s the main purpose in college. Some athletes lose that perspective.
It’s important to remember that because these athletes exercise so beyond what even a normal active person would, they generally must also supplement their diet.
They are always open to come to South Korea and play, because we never reject North Korean athletes.
Getting to know athletes from all over the planet is a big part of the Olympic experience.
I’m the world’s expert on sterotypes held by academics about athletes and held by athletes about academics. To me, both of them are caricatures.
Personal technology has given us the freedom of being able to do whatever we want – and in the case of celebrities and athletes, whomever they want. But it can also serve as a humiliation jetpack.
I had pain in both knees my whole career. Not many athletes play pain-free. Mine was just more than normal.
I think any actor can relate to the feeling of ‘Just tag me in, coach, give me a chance.’ Athletes go through the same thing. To be quite honest, most people in any job or career probably go though that, when you want a chance to prove what you can do, or somebody is taking away a chance at something you can do.
That’s the neat thing about the Olympics – so many of these athletes, they don’t make a ton of money, they train for four years to compete, and they realize, ‘Look, this is a blessing that I have this chance to represent the United States of America.’
Professional athletes, like it or not, have a responsibility to the kids of America.
I have always been small and one of the smallest heptathletes out there. And earlier in my career, I was faced with coaches and athletes who felt I was too small to be a multi-eventer. It gives you a push to show you can do it.
Athletes can not look the same and be great in their individual sport. The example I like to use is Gabby Douglas. She could not flip in the air if she was built like me, but then Gabby Douglas couldn’t throw the shot put. I was built like this because I was made to throw the shot put.
Food fighters in Japan think of themselves as athletes. They have a higher recognition of the game and are constantly thinking about records. I probably won’t continue for long because it puts pressure on the body. But I am at the age where I can perform my best.
Mike Tyson was one of the most terrific athletes I’ve ever met.
It’s no surprise that optimistic athletes, managers and teams do better. What’s interesting is where they do better. It’s in coming back from defeat and acting in the clutch.
Let’s start with the athlete, Nike’s original and most important collaborator. To us, everything starts with the insight. That’s why we work with the deepest roster of athletes, to gain the most profound understanding of what’s needed to perform.
Men do really dumb things. We see weapons of mass destruction where there are none. We over-emphasize sports. We place athletic achievement ahead of academic achievement. We spoil and pamper child athletes and then complain when they act spoiled and pampered as adults.
Just being with some of the best athletes in the world is a marvelous experience.
If we carry on filling up the calendar, we keep on pushing the athlete, we shorten the athletes longevity. The risk is to shorten a career that could have lasted 10 years because the athlete is burnt out.
I know that BMW is now a sponsor of the USOC – of the United States Olympic Committee – so they offer the use of their aerodynamic speed-tunnel for testing and such for the athletes, which is a great advantage. But to be honest with you, I’d rather have a free car!
In the World Cup, people of many nations come together for a fierce competition. To field the best team, all the competitor nations know that they need to train their athletes for many years, starting as early as the first moments a child can recognize a soccer ball. No shortcuts. No late starts.
We start to decline as humans and, particularly, as athletes right around 25 years old. If you’re real lucky, you might push that to 27 or 28.
Out of the tens of thousands of prosthetic legs they’ve made, there’s never been any 400-meter athletes run under 50 seconds. So, if this was such a technologically advanced prosthetic leg, then how come not everyone’s qualifying, or coming close to the qualification time, then?
It was the baseball fantasy of a lifetime – to be able to sit on the bench with all those professional athletes. I got to take my son along because I wasn’t sure I would be able to play with them.
I would never encourage my children to be athletes – first because my children are not athletes and second because there are so many people pushing to get to the top in sports that 100 people are crushed for each one who breaks through. This is unfortunate.
The peacocking nature of baseball players and athletes in general – you’re all kinda competing for who’s got the most swagger.
I have to stay hydrated. It’s very important for anyone, but especially athletes! We sweat a lot, and we need it.
As athletes, we want to represent our country to the best of our ability.
With the exception of undertakers, athletes are the only professionals obliged to feign sorrow on a daily basis, pretending that every June baseball loss is a tragedy requiring library silence in the clubhouse.
I went from 185 lbs to 285 lbs, became a 7X Mr. Olympia, tying Arnold Schwarzenegger, and competed against the most determined and fittest athletes in the world. This took hard work, tremendous dedication, and knowing what, how, and when to train.
Sports are evolving and always evolving, and people have that determination to keep going and coming back. I think I’m one of those athletes. I stand to show that people shouldn’t give up. You’ve got to just keep going until you succeed.
I’d like to see the high schools put in a rule that limits recruitable athletes from playing on teams outside a 100-mile radius from their home or school.
The actors in ‘Eight Men Out’ really know how to play, and the background athletes are all professionals.
No one works harder at inspiring athletes all over the world than our team at Nike. Creating those experiences requires an amazing amount of energy, a steady flow of big ideas to excite and surprise people, and a constant dialogue that connects us on a personal level.
Cameron was able to get an inside look at professional football from the standpoint of athletes and agents and general managers that few people have ever seen.
Gender equality cannot be achieved by cutting programs that allow girls to get the same chance to compete, learn, and play. The United States has had a solid history of commitment to its female athletes and expanding opportunity for women, and it is imperative that we continue on this path.
Most parents are able to be with their kid every day. Every day of their life, their parents have an opportunity to be with them, and we don’t have that luxury as professional athletes. That’s the hardest thing.
That’s what defines the best athletes: being capable of showing up year after year at the highest level.
Well, I mean, Russia was responsible for shooting down MH17. Russia was responsible for invading Ukraine. Russia is responsible for taking away the chemical weapons in Syria that they didn’t take away. Russia was responsible for having honest athletes in the Olympics when they did the whole doping program.
I’m very proud of the fact that we dispelled the myth about black athletes not being able to survive in Green Bay.
I didn’t have any specific gym training, my parents weren’t athletes and I wasn’t born into the fitness industry.
As professional athletes, we get pitched business or investment opportunities all the time, wherever we are.
We’re professional athletes. People know who we are, and if there’s some way we can help with a friend or someone in need, that’s a responsibility we have. I really strongly believe that.
Historically, companies haven’t hesitated to end their relationships with professional athletes amid scandals.
You could ask any position player and they’ll tell you: pitchers aren’t athletes.
Ballet dancers are among the greatest living athletes.
I feel like people always thought my sister and I were models. I think it was just because if you went through Diva Search, that’s just what you were. We were never models; we were athletes. We were athletes who fell in love with wrestling.
Working in sports for nearly the past twenty years, I have seen first-hand how gun violence affects athletes and their families.
I long for the days when athletes were revered. I want to see the romance return to sports, to see people enjoy the game purely for the game and the players.
