Words matter. These are the best Olympic Quotes from famous people such as Arnold Palmer, Peter Bergen, Katie Taylor, P. T. Usha, Petra Kvitova, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
As a kid growing up in Latrobe, PA, I could dream about being an Olympian like Jesse Owens or Johnny Weissmuller. I could also dream about being a great golfer like Bobby Jones or Byron Nelson. But the idea of being an Olympic golfer never occurred to me.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the two brothers who carried out the marathon bombing, was a non-practicing Muslim who only became an Islamist militant once his dreams of becoming an Olympic boxer faded. At the time of the attack, he was unemployed.
I’m just sorry I couldn’t come home with a second Olympic gold medal.
The country has to identify and promote raw talent. I have full faith that India will win Olympic gold in athletics sooner than later.
My dream is to have a medal from the Olympic Games, and I will do my best to have it.
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 first time I walked into the Olympic athlete village seeing the Visa ATM machine with my picture on it and the Chinese characters saying ‘Destiny.’ For some reason, it just boosted my confidence and it was before I had even worked out or had my first training or competed.
The London Olympic Opening Ceremony was excellent. The mixture of old and new, of classic and contemporary was a beautiful reflection of Great Britain. Danny Boyle is a genius.
For me, back in Sydney, it was just being there and going out and beating Alexander Karelin, 13-time world champion and Olympic gold medalist. It was everything for me.
I wouldn’t say that there’s ever been an Olympic champion that didn’t deserve to win an Olympic Gold Medal.
I am very glad not only to complete the grand slam, but to become Olympic champion alone makes me happy.
I remember seeing a story on Olympic swimmer, Ryan Lochte doing strongman workouts. That was awesome.
The atmosphere in Sochi is unusual, in that we are surrounded by the Olympic complex. It is special to compete at a location that has played such a big part in international sporting history, which gives this place a unique feeling.
Obama might as well be president of Turkey or Brazil; it does not matter. It’s the system that is absolutely flawed, where 25 or 35 or 50 people make multi, multi-billions on building Olympic structures while people live in Barbados and have no roads or clean drinking water. There’s something pretty inequitable there.
I’m hoping that maybe everyone on the Olympic team thinks that I’m worthy to carry the flag. That’s my next goal, to carry the flag during the opening ceremonies, if everyone chooses me.
Nothing dramatic can be expected from the Sports Code, because the Olympic Charter has to be respected.
I know everyone has Olympic dreams, but if you really think about it, you just don’t want to go to the Olympics. You want to be a gold medalist at the Olympic Games.
That people believe I can be Olympic champ, it just spurs me on.
The pressure of the Olympic Games is real overwhelming.
Maybe there’s a little girl who thinks she can be an Olympic athlete, and she sees all the things I struggled through to get here. Yeah, I didn’t walk away with a medal or run away with a medal, but I think there’s lessons to be learned when you win and lessons to be learned when you lose.
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.
I was discovered by Paul Marciano of Guess when I was actually, like, two years old. And so I started with Baby Guess; I did Guess Kids, and then I stopped because I was a really competitive horseback rider and a club volleyball player. I went to Junior Olympic qualifiers for volleyball. So, I kind of stopped modeling.
During my first Olympics in 1980, at the age of 23, I was physically in great condition but mentally too inexperienced to cope comfortably in the pressure cooker of an Olympic year.
When I first asked my boxing coach, two-time Olympic champion Hector Vinent, what made the Cuban style of fighting distinct from the rest of the world, he smiled and told me to sit on a bench in Prado and watch the Cuban women walk.
Growing up, Michael Jordan was my Olympic hero.
I want to bring back that glory in our country because we are the Olympic champions. So I want to see that glory days back in India, hence I’m giving my hundred per cent to contribute my best.
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 got an invitation to go to the Olympic trials. And in the same week, I got a telegram from a… big executive at Columbia Records.
You work for years and years to make the Olympics, then something goes wrong and it’s all gone. But that doesn’t mean you can’t still make your mark in another way. Losing in the Olympic Trials made me that much hungrier to become a world champion as a pro.
Both the velodrome and the Commonwealth swimming pool are open to the public and are frequently used by local schools and the local community. Over the last six years young people have been inspired to take up swimming and cycling more seriously; some of them are now coming through as Olympic champions or hopefuls.
I’m looking towards that Olympic medal and that Olympic gold and what it’s going to take to get there.
I’ve been given this amazing platform as an Olympic athlete, and there are so many people out there who don’t feel like their voice is being heard. I feel it’s my responsibility to speak out on issues that are important.
I still wanted to see it officially on the scoreboard but, when it was announced ‘Denise Lewis is Olympic champion,’ it was just like a volcano of elation, relief and satisfaction exploding through my system.
Winning that team-pursuit Olympic gold medal was unbelievable.
I went and played football so I can support my family like I wanted to. Track has been my real dream, to be an Olympic champion and God gave me another opportunity.
I did not know about awards. I just wanted to break the world record and the Olympic record.
My wife is an Olympic gold medalist, WNBA All-Star, ‘Jeopardy!’ champion, and Rhodes Scholarship finalist who was sung to by President Clinton, sung about by Ludacris, and serenaded on ‘Sesame Street’ by a chorus of Muppets.
I had been thinking, ‘I’ve got to win because I’m Olympic champion’; actually, no, it’s, ‘I’m an Olympic champion for life,’ I can just enjoy the rest.
Of course, most people remember that I received the first perfect 10 in Olympic gymnastics competition.
I don’t know about you, but I lie awake nights worrying about Canadian uranium. I know these people. I grew up there. You have no idea what they’re capable of doing. If Sidney Crosby hadn’t scored that goal to win the Olympic gold medal, there’s no telling what might have ensued.
Due to my love for ‘Harry Potter,’ I have to say my celebrity crush is Emma Watson and my Olympic crush is Gracie Gold.
I’m not a big fan of the Olympic Games. The ATP calendar is a bit complex due to the Olympic event.
The Olympic Games of the Modern Era began in 1896 in the city of Athens.
I’m more of a hands-on person. I like working with young people from the standpoint of providing support for the grassroots programs. State, national and Olympic champions begin at a grassroots level.
There was a time in my life I wanted that Olympic medal, and all I did was train, train, train and work harder than ever.
Sports authority should hire coaches only on contract basis in athletics and also in other games. The coaches should be told to produce medals in upcoming Olympic Games. Only then will they work day and night and push sportsmen and women to work harder.
Standing on the podium at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta and receiving a gold medal was the crowning jewel in a successful gymnastics career and, most certainly, the confirmation that my parents’ sacrifices were not in vain.
Who actually enjoys skiing? Come on, even Olympic ski masters, even James Bond, think that dressing up in all that fluorescent, insulated kit and having to manoeuvre down a mountain in the freezing cold is no way to spend leisure time.
From the energy of the Olympic crowd to the celebratory feel of the Brazilian culture, I expect nothing less than an exciting and unforgettable 2016 event.
What I find about Olympic games is there’s so many fantastic stories, and the celebration of sport, and to be involved in that is the honor of our lifetime.
I wanted to win an Olympic medal for my country but because of circumstances, I had to become a professional wrestler. I will have fulfilled my dream if I can support even one kid who wins a medal for the country.
It’s been a dream for me since I was six years old to go to the Olympic Games and to finally have that dream realised is something massive for me.
I’m thrilled that I was able to share my first Olympic Games experience with my U.S. teammates.
It was what I’ve always wanted, more than anything: to be an Olympic hero rather than a Tour de France star, something I had from childhood.
I don’t believe in the so-called Olympic spirit. I speak from personal experience. When China hosted the Games, it failed to include the people. The event was constructed without regard for their joy.
I want to experience that massive adrenalin rush when you step into a new stadium, all the more so when that Olympic Stadium is packed full of people waving British flags.
Teofilo Stevenson won his first Olympic gold medal in 1972 and his last world amateur championship in 1986. He won 302 fights and once went an unbelievable 11 years without a loss. Had Cuba not boycotted the 1984 Summer Olympics, many think Stevenson would have won an unmatched four gold medals in boxing.
I was never invited to the White House. They invited that Olympic Russian gymnast – that little Communist, Olga Korbut.
It took me a few years to explain to my colleagues and my mentors and the people that I looked up to and I wrestled that I’m not in wrestling anymore. I’m in sports entertainment. Pro’ wrestling doesn’t mean that we’re saying we’re a step up above amateur wrestling, because there’s nothing above Olympic wrestling.
I had my Olympic gold medal cut up into eleven pieces. Gave all eleven of my kids a piece. It’ll come together again when they put me down.
It’s an Olympic year, man, and crazy stuff always happens in an Olympic year.
I have a lot of very happy memories of the Olympic Games, and the final against Nigeria and the goal mean an awful lot to me.
I will always be grateful for having that opportunity to be part of a home Olympic games. It is a memory I will cherish forever.
I think that’s the beauty of the Olympics. There’s always a story. There’s always someone you’re invested in. There are so many Olympic moments that resonate with people all across Canada, and I think that’s the beauty of it.
I think if I am to win an Olympic medal I’ll have to score like I did today.
If I had tried the Olympics any younger, I wouldn’t have been as prepared as I am right now. But there are definitely a ton of juniors out there, all around the world and in the USA, that if there was no age limit, they could definitely make the Olympic team.
Swimming and athletics are the big gigs at the Olympic games. Cycling and rowing are pretty big for Britain, but globally, the two big things are athletics and swimming.
While football embarrassingly exposes the excesses of capitalism, the Olympic sports have been used to propagate the neoliberal mantra that success is simply a matter of hard work.
To be frank, you can’t compare the atmosphere and the way people behaved in the Olympic Stadium with the game I watched the day after, the Community Shield.
Hockey suffers from being compared to itself in ways that other sports are not. Every four years, some of us fawn over Olympic hockey, a great event with bigger rinks, minimal goonishness and national pride in addition to the heightened skills of veritable all-star squads.
Figure skating is an unlikely Olympic event but its good television. It’s sort of a combination of gymnastics and ballet. A little sexy too which doesn’t hurt.
I hate how late we have our Olympic Trials, always have.
Olympic wrestling is like using an old Nokia phone; it’s fairly basic.
During the time of Olympics I felt very lonely. Nobody was there at my side, to guide me or attend to my needs. In the Olympic village I had to travel alone up to the mess and competition ground as well as to the practice ground.
I ran the effort to bring the 2012 Olympic Games to New York City. We lost – on a global scale. To my surprise, life went on, and I learnt that nobody cares about your failures as much as you do.
To win an Olympic gold would be very special for me.
Throughout my entire life, I’ve always been a captain. I was the captain of my high school team. I was the captain at Oklahoma State University. I was the captain of the 2008 Olympic team.
It’s really incredible to win an Olympic Gold in your home city.
Whether at the Olympic Games or during a Davis Cup tie I am extremely proud and honored to represent my country.
It had been a dream of mine to go to an Olympic Games since I was about seven years old. I didn’t know I’d do it ski jumping, but that’s how it turned out.
I had been on this improv team at this really great improv theater. It’s called iO now. It used to be called Improv Olympic. They have showcases for Lorne Michaels and other writers and people who work at ‘SNL’ usually about once a year, although I don’t know if it always happens.
The Olympic Games are highly commercialised. They purport to follow the traditions of an ancient athletics competition, but today it is the commercial aspect that is most apparent. I have seen how, through sport, cities and corporations compete against each other for financial gain.
Sustainability goes across everything I do with Adidas and everything I do with my own house, so the Olympic kit is no exception. It is incredibly environmental in the way that it is manufactured. For example, there’s no leather; it’s free from PVC. There’s lots of woven materials, which means a lot less waste.
We’re in a pressure-filled sport for sure, but anything in an Olympic season is heightened, the highs are higher and the lows are lower, and everything just takes on grander proportions.
When you’re expected to win and you have the press saying that you are going to win the Olympic gold medal, and you’re the only sure thing in the Olympics, it can undermine your confidence.
My goal is to win a gold medal at the Olympic Games, and I’ll fight and continue going until I do that.
There’s an adage that a lot of coaches have, that I completely disagree with, is if you make the Olympic team too early you become complacent.
Much in the way Olympic athletes optimize their game by paying an enormous – borderline maniacal – amount of attention to things like diet, exercise, sleep, and of course the essential R&R, we all would do well to pay more attention to those key aspects of our lives that comprise our overall health equation.
I’m trying to make better choices, and for me, this is kind of a rebirth. If I make the Olympic team? Great. If not, look at myself after eight years and ballooning up almost 200 pounds and getting on ‘The Biggest Loser.’ You know what? I get my life back again, and that’s what truly mattered to me.
There’s a lot more to life than just the Olympic Games.
It is the inspiration of the Olympic Games that drives people not only to compete but to improve, and to bring lasting spiritual and moral benefits to the athlete and inspiration to those lucky enough to witness the athletic dedication.
If I would have won that Olympic gold medal, I would have gotten a job somewhere coaching at a university, and I would be totally content with my life.
The Olympic Games are the greatest sporting event in the world.
I’ve interviewed presidents and royalty, rock stars and movie stars, famous generals and captains of industry; I’ve had front row seats at Super Bowls, World Series, and Olympic Games; my books have been on best-seller lists, and my marriage is a long-running success.
My father used to say to me, ‘The only limit to your success is your own imagination.’ I actually believed that – like, I’m still coming to terms with the fact that I might not be an Olympic figure skater.
Winning an Olympic gold medal is like nothing else.
Getting the Games for London has been the fulfilment of a dream. It is one which I truly believe can change the lives of hundreds of thousands of young people for the better. But in the end, nothing can quite compare with winning your first Olympic gold medal.
It’s harder to be a dad than an Olympic champion.
I still really haven’t sat down and said ‘yeah, I’m ranked No. 1 in the world and I’m an Olympic Gold Medalist.’ It just hasn’t hit me.
I feel that I had been rescued from the gutter by America. One day I was under the gutter, chased by police, thinking dogs were going to get me. I laid there listening to the dogs and the gutter. The next day, there I am standing on the Olympic platform, and you hear the anthem. I was proud.
I’ve won junior titles, ABA titles and boxed for England all over the world against future Olympic champions as an amateur – and then beat world-class fighters as a professional.
It’s the Olympics. And it was a long way for me. To compete at the Olympic Games, I dreamed of any medal, but frankly speaking, I wanted a gold one.
Growing up I definitely looked up to Dominique Moceanu. She was my favorite gymnast and she was on that ’96 Olympic team. She was always so fun to watch. I kind of wanted to model my career after hers.
It is effectively a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be involved, and the chance to win an Olympic medal would be amazing.
I hope the BWF (Badminton World Federation) will seriously do something about the Olympic qualifying format or risk getting badminton dropped from the Games.
You go from Olympic wrestling into pro wrestling, and it’s a very difficult transition, but if you make it, you can earn a great living while at the same time giving amateur wrestling a lot of exposure by being on TV every week. Fans know where you came from.
When you are at the Olympic Games, it comes down to a ten thousandth of a hair between making the next round or winning a race or getting second or third.
I’m a two-time Olympian, but ever since I was a little girl, the Olympic dream has influenced me.
Winning a title in Olympic year is never easy.
The Olympic Games must not be an end in itself, they must be a means of creating a vast programme of physical education and sports competitions for all young people.
I went to London and was excited to make the team, but to be honest, I was a bit dissatisfied with my performance there, and I’d really like to make up for that in Rio and get the best out of myself on the Olympic stage.
You can not be in top five in Olympic after just one year’s preparation.
Remember before nineteen seventy two Olympic Games I was total skinny, I was small, very strong, they may be don’t like to see a gymnastics like that. I don’t know but, gymnastics, might. Nineteen seventy two supposed to be change somewhere.
Having an Olympic medal validates that you can be a successful freeskier… It’s like a credential that sticks with you the rest of your life.
In para-cycling I am a veteran with Olympic medals now.
I was at the Olympic Games winning medals and I still doubted my image. I doubted what I looked like. That’s sad.
In the Olympic Oath, I ask for only one thing: sporting loyalty.
I want the full Olympic experience.
Being 19 years old and making the Olympic team on my last lift. I went 6-for-6 and had a perfect Olympic trial. Making the team and being one of the youngest to ever go to the Olympics was pretty special.
I pretty much knew that I was going to come in fourth, but then I said, ‘I’m fourth at the Olympic Games. What are you talking about? Why is that disappointing?’
So, in a way I was hedging and saying that if the Olympic stuff doesn’t work out at least I can be a lawyer.
I am Olympic champion for life, and I have learned to enjoy what that means.
Olympic athletes have to find a job right after they’re done competing.
I think we should follow the Olympic charter and the guidelines as the whole world is following it.
Olympic athletes are a different breed. We’re not dealing with million-dollar contracts. We don’t do the sport for those deals. We do the sport because we love the challenge, the battle. We love to be an American.
We can’t all win Olympic medals. Even I never won one.
I’ve been to Tokyo-slash-Japan – we actually went to Yokohama in 2015 and 2013 for international competitions. I think that it would be really nice to go back and do a little Olympic thing there.
We knew James Harden was good. You don’t get named to All-Star games and win Olympic gold medals when you play like Darko Milicic.
If you skate with an Olympic level skater, they make you so much better because you’re skating behind them, and you’re trying to imitate their stride and their stance. It’s like having the world’s greatest training wheels.
How can you top an Olympic gold other than, you know, getting a second Olympic gold?
It was while I was in the mental hospital that I got my letter from the British Olympic Association saying, ‘Congratulations. You’ve been picked to go to the Olympic Games.’ I kept stressing I wasn’t a patient.
An Olympic medal won’t define my whole life, although it might look like it to onlookers. When I look back, I should have been able to get an Olympic medal.
One must put things in perspective – I’ve been given a circumstance with very little time to catch form and try and get an Olympic quota for the country.
In WWE, I focused more on Olympic lifting. I had to make sure that I was physically able to lift another human being at all times.
I’m not really sure if I will go back to school. I’m getting old! So I’m not really sure if I have time to go back to school to be a dentist. But hopefully I’ll be an Olympic gold medalist.
The Olympic Games were created for the exhaltation of the individual athlete.
In 1974 or 1975, if someone had told me I was going to be an Olympic champion, I would not have believed it. Even in 1976, I’d not have believed it.
My main point in this regard was to compete for my country and my people and to receive the support of the entire Cuban society, to carry my flag in whatever competition I was in, the Olympic Games, Pan-American Games.
Olympic Gold changed me and my life dramatically. I became a celebrity overnight and people see me as a famous skater, not a real person.
I wanted to be the best street fighter in Houston, Texas. And I thought if I got a trophy or two, I’d go back home, and everyone would be afraid of me. I had one fight in ’67, the first one. In ’68 of October, I was an Olympic gold-medalist, a dream come true, with a total of 25 boxing matches.
It’s torturous what my siblings put me through. I can take any Olympic final, I can fight in a world championship and fall behind and win in sudden death, but when it comes to my siblings, it’s out of my control. There’s not much I can do.
It was a dream of mine to be an Olympic champion but not a lifelong goal.
Past Olympians have a continuing role within the Olympic family.
Dad met Mom in 1983 during the lead-up to the 1984 games. She was an Olympic downhill skier. In those days, the winter and summer games were held in different cities but in the same year, so there was more intermingling of winter and summer athletes at social functions.
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.
I rolled the second car that I ever owned, a Toyota 4 Runner. This was winter in Colorado, two weeks before the 2002 Olympic trials. I was driving in the outside lane, and my rear tire caught some black ice, and we totally turned sideways to the point where we were heading right toward the median.
Every time I hear that Champions League song, it reminds me of hearing it for the first time in the old Olympic Stadium in Amsterdam.
The Olympics is still my greatest achievement… I have many belts, but there is only one Olympic gold.
It wasn’t until I was 14 and watched the 1976 Olympic games on television that I really started to dream about the big time. I remember seeing Evelyn Ashford in the 100 meters, and she was going to UCLA.
The Olympic medal gave me a lot of confidence, and I went and won my first Super Series in Hong Kong. So in that regards, what Rio did was give me extra motivation and the confidence that now anything can happen.
When I picked athletics, I knew I wanted to be an Olympic champion.
Olympic champions should be 100 per cent athletes who have made the sacrifices.
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 had been on the junior Olympic team in high school for trampoline; I could do twenty-six back flips in a row.
I think an Olympic medal is the only thing missing from what I can physically achieve as a cyclist. I can’t win the Tour de France, but I’ve pretty much won everything else that I can within my physical realm, so that’s the only thing missing.
The Olympic stadium may have been built only in the early 1970s but it was clear for a long time it had no future. For many reasons it is not good enough for modern football and today’s fans.
My senior year of high school, when I was getting recruited for college, my dad goes to me, ‘You can become an Olympic champion.’ And that’s the first time that I’d heard someone else say that to me. I was like, ‘Uh, are you talking to me?’
At the end of the day, standing on the Olympic podium on the top is what we’re all really searching for here.
The fans and supporters are also part of the Olympic family.
No matter what, like, I couldn’t – I could break a world record, get an Olympic gold medal, and my mom would be, like, you could have done better. But you looked pretty. That’s what she says all the time.
I set myself some specific goals, but the key one is just getting myself into as good a shape as possible for one day this year: the Olympic marathon.
I never really felt I had the same respect as my male team-mates. My opinion wasn’t worth as much. I used to sit quietly in meetings and not say anything, as I knew my opinions would be disregarded. And that’s after I had become Olympic champion and multiple world champion.
I have trained so so hard to be where I am at – I train with Olympic athletes and if I’m struggling to get to the top then there is something wrong.
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!
I set my sights on making an Olympic team, not realizing how tough it was going to be.
For too long the world has failed to recognise that the Olympic Games and the Olympic Movement are about fine athletics and fine art.
The FIS, BSF, and British Olympic Association have been trying to stop me competing internationally. They don’t like the fact that I laugh and have fun and entertain the crowd.
You must understand that to get an Olympic medal is a huge achievement.
I’ve actually carried the Olympic torch through Stoke-on-Trent.
I grew up dreaming about being an Olympic basketball player: Doug Collins getting smashed into the stanchion, making two free throws. Phil Ford and Mike O’Koren in 1976.
The fact that we’re Olympic champions and we don’t have any professional teams in our home country is pretty unacceptable.
Join me in Olympic Heros for Abstinence. The best sex is no sex.
To be honest, after you’ve crossed the line at the Olympic Games, it is bedlam for the next, about, five or six hours. Media, press conference, dope control – you might get some food if you’re lucky. You might see family if you’re lucky.
We enter the government essentially in a hotel that is on fire. We’re throwing people from the windows into the pool to save their lives and this is the evaluation of the Olympic diving committee: Well, the splash was too big.
My childhood ambition was to be an Olympic swimmer like my aunt, but that died a quick death when I discovered other sports. I swam very competitively till I was 15, then I swam for fun until I was 18. But athletics remain a very big part of my life.
Besides wrestling, in my younger years, I also competed in Olympic lifting and power lifting.
There was something about being in Rio, being around the other Olympic athletes and playing for the U.S. It was the most special experience I’ve had.
I think the most surprising thing about the Olympics would be the amount of interaction and partying that goes on behind the scenes. They have nightclubs at the Olympic Village. It’s like college all over again.
As the Olympic torch neared Lake Placid, N.Y., in 1980, signaling the opening of that year’s Winter Olympics, newspapers and magazines throughout the world offered predictions on who would win medals in the major sports. Not a single publication gave the American men’s hockey team a chance against the world powers.
Dad was a retired hedge fund manager who made enough millions to retire and focus on my game. Before that, he was on the 1984 U.S. Olympic swimming team. No medals. He was accustomed to winning at everything, but no medals in 1984.
I think that there’s something extremely beautiful about the Olympic ideal and its motto – ‘Swifter, higher, stronger’ – it’s such a beautiful motto, and it celebrates everything which is the antithesis of death and dissolution and entropy.
Once I really understood what skating was and what the Olympic really entailed, I knew that’s what I wanted to do: I wanted to be there; I wanted to represent the U.S.
It would be pretty special if I could win two Olympic gold medals, one at the Summer Games and one from the Winters, so I’m going to give it a real go.
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.
Once you become an Olympic champion, you are expected to win all the time.
Popov was double Olympic champion in ’92 and ’96, and then Gary Hall came along and won in 2000 and 2004, and I would be the next on the list. That’s a good goal, to have my name on that list alongside these guys.
I think climbing deserves to be an Olympic sport, as it is one of the few natural movements – like swimming or running, things that people have been doing for a thousand years.
If I do consider fighting, it won’t be until after the Olympic games in 2020, and then from there I’ll reevaluate, see if it’s something that would be a realistic option for me.
People talk about retiring. I never said that r-word. People though I went away after the Olympic Games. I took time off to do something I’ve always wanted to be – a mother.
Those Olympic lifters – how can you call someone the strongest man if he can’t walk over to a car and pick it up?
I want to be the European, Olympic, Commonwealth and world champion. I want the full set.
I mean, does anyone seriously think there are no drugs in Olympic sports just because they do some kind of testing? They are highly competitive sports with highly competitive people and just with competitive business people do whatever they can do to get ahead.
The U.S. Olympic spirit award is an award that is given to an athlete who embodies the Olympic spirit in more ways than just on the playing field, in showing incredible perseverance, in overcoming obstacles, and what we wanted to do is have everybody can vote on-line.
I trained with a few Olympic runners and jumpers. Just to try to get a little bit faster, a little bit better. Anything I could do to try to get a little bit better and stay ahead of the competition.
Life is about opportunities, creating them and embracing them, and for me, that was the Olympic dream. That’s what defined me. That was my bliss.
The torch relay is an excellent embodiment of all that the Olympic Games have come to symbolise – a celebration of the human spirit. Personally to me, it represents striving to be the best in whatever we do, never giving up despite the odds, and a commitment to health and fitness.
Hockey lends itself to special events, including the Olympic competition: a glorious tournament of the best players in the world, putting on their national jerseys and playing on big rinks with no-goon Olympic rules and referee enforcement.
If the world’s nations can set aside their petty bickering over religion, politics, and territory, certainly I can ‘get that Olympic Spirit’ and rise above my prejudices.
Breaking the world record in ’92 was a very special personal moment, but I’d say my favorite moment as a decathlete was winning the Olympic gold medal. It was a lot of years of work, and when I won it, it was more a sense of relief than jubilation or exaltation.
I thought I was going to jump further than that, but I don’t care – I’m Olympic champion.
Throughout its history, the international Olympic Committee has struggled to spread its ideal of fraternity, friendship, peace and universal understanding.
I know too that we Americans like to think of ourselves as cleaner than clean, a healthy nation who would never take anything when a recent poll suggested that 65 per cent of the population would risk dying in 10 years if they would be guaranteed Olympic gold.
I have not had the chance to go out there and do myself justice in an Olympic marathon yet. I have not been able to get to an Olympic marathon injury-free yet.
To compare Olympic sport with cricket would not be fair. Years back, cricket was a sport only for the classes, and we will also have to make other sports masses from classes like cricket.
I’m proud to be part of any Olympic team.
No, I don’t run all the way. I’m not like an Olympic class runner.
I now have Youth Olympic, Olympic and European Games titles, which is a dream. I didn’t fight that well and just scraped through a lot of the fights, but winning is a relief, and it’s more points towards the Rio Olympics, which takes a bit of pressure off me.
My goal is one Olympic gold medal. Not many people in this world can say, ‘I’m an Olympic gold medalist.’
In our view the Olympic idea involves a strong physical culture supplemented on the one hand by mobility, what is so aptly called ‘fair play’, and on the other hand by aesthetics, that is the cultivation of what is beautiful and graceful.
I’d been ready too, because before Olympic Games, I wasn’t compete in big competition like, World Championship, like European Championship. I just competed in national competition.
I do a lot of Olympic training to keep muscle density but it’s hard because I ride on the shoulder seasons of spring and fall and maybe take a trip somewhere to ride in winter.
To stand up to worldwide competition, we need a very strong set-up at home that produces athletes right from the beginner’s level and has the sustained back-up for the same athlete to finally go and win an Olympic medal.
I think if I just do what I do every day, on the extraordinary Olympic stage, I could be a podium contender.
Here were these college kids beating the Soviets and going on to the Olympic Gold Medal. To me, that’s the greatest upset of all time in any sport that I can think of.
Ever since I was a kid and all the time I have played in the NHL, NHL players have played in the Olympic Games.
If you’re from Argentina, you don’t dream about these things. You probably dream about being in an Olympic game, but winning it? Going there and beating the NBA stars’ team… you don’t dream about that.
The Olympic Games are for the world and all nations must be admitted to them.
If you are in your sport for your country, you should be able to go to the Olympic Games and represent your sport for your country bringing people together in the interests of sport. It’s a fantastic Olympic ideal, and I uphold it as much as I can.
My Olympic voyage has continued because it is so rewarding.
I’m quite excited to think that I will run the Olympic race here next year.
My Olympic moment from the individual event was that I was really able to enjoy my skating, and so that meant a lot to me, and I didn’t portray that accurately.
I never won a Vezina Trophy until I won the Olympic gold medal.
Women’s marathoning was not added as an Olympic medal event until 1984 due to unfounded and bizarre concerns among Olympic organizers about women’s ability to run longer distances. It was finally added after much campaigning.
The trial of Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius has kept me fascinated and shocked in equal measure. But like many women, I was relieved this week when he was found guilty of culpable homicide after killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.
My aim is to do better than I did in Tokyo. I am glad I won the Olympic gold. I may have got the national record, but I am trying to breach the 90-metre barrier.
Rio is going to be my fifth Olympic games – it’s been a long journey but a rewarding one, I would say.
I have the unique distinction of being on the only Olympic team to lose without controversy, and the only Pan Am Games team to lose without controversy.
We had just recently moved to California from Italy, and while we were driving around, we saw a billboard ad for McDonald’s on Olympic Boulevard in Los Angeles. The word ‘guess’ was in the ad, and my brother decided that that would be the name of our company!
I’m a Golden Gloves national champion, I’m an Olympic alternate.
I must refine my training every day to give myself the best opportunity to achieve my dreams during the Olympic Games in Rio.
Getting to the Olympics was, has always been, my swimming dream since I was 8 or 9 years old. You know, right after I started swimming it was, ‘I want to make an Olympic team. That’s where I want to be.’
The Olympic games are already there and we don’t have even half of what you need to train well.
The opportunity to represent your country at the Olympic Games is earned, not given.
And from that nineteen sixty four, this was my goal to go to Olympic Games. And I realized what does it mean, Olympic Games, like big celebration.
President Theodore Roosevelt, who signed the Antiquities Act into law, created 18 monuments, including the Grand Canyon and Olympic National Park in Washington, totaling more than a million acres.
I have always wanted to compete in the Olympic Games.
I’m pretty proud of having completed a marathon myself, so I can only imagine the pride that real athletes feel when they are picked for the Olympic or the Paralympic Games.
To me, being heavyweight world champion and Olympic sprint champion are the two greatest prizes in sport.
Although, you know it’s been really nice to wear the Olympic kit, I’m looking forward to wearing non-sports, feminine clothes.
The Himalayan glaciers, China’s trade surplus, Olympic ice hockey – the world is full of pressing subjects that people never consult me about.
I don’t think revenge is enough to fuel the fire it takes to go to an Olympic Games and be successful.
I will never forget the 2012 Olympic Games in London.
The Olympic gold was like going to a theater and seeing a movie that had the ending you expected. But you left the theater thinking, ‘You know, that was a good movie.’
There was a lot of politics going on, and Ireland were denied an Olympic gold medal in 2008.
I wrote ‘Yellow Submarine’ for the Beatles. I wrote the screenplay for ‘The Games,’ about the Olympic Games. I wrote ‘Love Story,’ both the novel and the screenplay. I wrote ‘RPM’ for Stanley Kramer. Plus, I wrote two scholarly books and a 400-page translation from the Latin, and I dated June Wilkinson!
It was so much fun being in the Olympic Village and meeting all the athletes.
It means a lot to be an Olympian. I’m obviously so grateful and feel so lucky I was able to achieve my dream of winning an Olympic gold medal.
When I took the job as the manager of the Olympic team, I didn’t take it because I was a Dodger. I did it because I was an American, and I wanted to bring that gold medal where it belongs in baseball, the United States. And that’s exactly what our team did.
When I started out on ‘The Biggest Loser,’ for me it was kind of embarrassing to be on national TV and go from this wrestling icon, this Olympic gold medalist, to being on ‘The Biggest Loser.’
Besides film, I’d like to be the young Regis. That would be great. Going back and forth from L.A. to New York. Doing stuff on food. Doing stuff on kids. Just talking about issues that are relevant. Doing things on the Olympic Games.
I’m going into my first Olympics, whereas people I’m racing against are going into their third and fourth and probably last Olympics. So there’s more pressure on them to perform. I’ve still got a whole future ahead of me. I am not even the Olympic champ.
Squash has the credentials to become an olympic event and our goal is to see the sport in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. We are working towards this and will keep trying even if our bid is not successful.
The Olympic Games is one of those moments that you remember forever, from the moment that you step foot in the country that you’re competing in to the Closing Ceremony.
And I suggested to change very simple way to Olympic Games, in one competition, two different levels. Separate from, until sixteen, and after sixteen years old.
BMX is still a young sport in Olympic terms. So the sport science behind it is also relatively new. As a program, it’s only going to get better as the sport gets bigger and more extreme.
Every athlete wants to win an Olympic gold medal, and I’d be lying if I said that’s not what I wanted.
Young people and Indian people need to know that we existed in the 20th Century. We need to know who our heroes are and to know what we have done and accomplished in this century other than what Olympic athletes Jim Thorpe and Billy Mills have done.
You do not boo an Olympic Gold Medalist. I’m the best in the world. I came here for you. You don’t boo me.
I don’t respond well to the Olympic noise, which is the noise of nationalistic triumphalism.
I am a dreamer. And what I dream of is to become Olympic champion, world champion, world record holder.
I never had one day that I didn’t want to be on the ice, because I always had an objective for that day. I had a rigorous plan and schedule in place that I had to adhere to. It was a step-by-step process of slowly but surely inching toward the Olympic Games and using every day as a series of goals to be accomplished.
The good feeling I get from contributing rivals anything I felt on the Olympic stand in Albertville.
It happens too frequently that after a couple of poor performances, athletes are dumped. That’s unfair as Olympic glory is a long path.
Former Olympians also get paid to make appearances. Many of them won their medals in an era when Olympic success didn’t go hand-in-hand with financial success.
Getting to the Olympic Games was my gold medal.
As many as three million people are expected to attend the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, British Columbia. The security concerns and economic opportunities are great for both Canada and Washington state.
Even though I’ve won numerous titles and an Olympic gold medal, there are still so many faults in my performance that I can honestly hardly bear to watch the videos back.
If I’m able to win the world championships when I’m not even at my best, then with another year until Rio, maybe I could even become Olympic champion.
An offer to fight Muhammad Ali came after Stevenson won his second Olympic gold in Montreal in 1976. Stevenson was at his peak. The world had never seen a heavyweight with the tools Stevenson brought into the ring.
Tokyo 2020 was an Olympic Games of many firsts for India. The success of Team India at the Olympics is a reflection of how New India desires and aspires to dominate the world… even in sports.
I’ve always wanted to be an athlete, I loved sport and PE in school and always watched the Olympic Games on TV.
Everybody knows my life. I won a lot of tournaments and scored more than 1,000 goals, won three World Cups but I could not play in Olympic Games.
To win two Olympic golds in a row like Daley Thompson is very special. One day, I’m going to have to meet Daley, shake his hand, and thank him for giving me something to chase after.
No matter whether you’re an Olympic swimmer or you’re someone who doesn’t like to swim, your kids should learn this life skill. You can’t be next to them every second, so they must be able to relax in the water and get themselves to safety.
When you’re on the Olympic team at 15, you don’t do anything else. There’s no normal social development, and your decisions are made for you.
The hunger has come back now because I want to be a double Olympic champion. I want to be a legend.
It’s kind of nice in some ways having an Olympic Trials where I finished second. You can kind of go in more under the radar facing a 2:03 guy and facing a lot of dudes who are faster than I am, whereas, before Beijing, I had one of the top 10 times in the field, or something like that.
I love wushu a lot and I would love to see it included in future Olympic Games.
Kurt Angle is an Olympic gold medalist, one of the greatest in-ring performers of all-time.
We have made drugs an Olympic event. It receives most of the coverage at the Games and even the suspicion of guilt can ruin a reputation for life.
Yeah, that’s what kind of, we get the idea a little bit yeah, because other people from different countries also try as hard as they can to get a medal or a gold medal in the Olympic Games. And you know, if they can work hard, we can work hard as well.
I always thought the Vancouver Olympics would be my last destination, but I’m extending it to Sochi… I want to start anew, not as an Olympic medalist but just as yet another figure skater.
Winning the Olympics was an amazing feeling, but afterwards, it was a bit like, ‘What do I do now?’ So I lost a bit of motivation going back into training and competitions; I had so much pressure on me. I kept thinking, ‘I’m the Olympic champion. I can’t lose’ – being only 19 and having to deal with all that pressure.
The Olympic Games are the quadrennial celebration of the springtime of humanity.
I’ve been training super hard at the Lopez Taekwondo Academy in Houston, which belongs to my brother Jean. For me, I think confidence is the biggest thing; it’s all mental. I train with the best of the best, including my brother Steven, a five-time world champion who won Olympic gold medals.
Adding an Olympic medal to everything that I have already accomplished would be so huge for me.
I remember going down the tunnel into the Olympic Stadium and getting a glimpse of all the people and hearing all the noise, all the people shouting for us. I’d seen Usain Bolt on the warm-up track, and then, as I walked into the stadium, I sort of realised how big it was!
Getting to know athletes from all over the planet is a big part of the Olympic experience.
In my first fight, I acknowledged it. I’m a professional wrestler, this is who I am, who you know me as. But guess what, I’ve also been wrestling since I was 5 years old – real wrestling – amateur wrestling, Olympic wrestling.
I’m so over the moon that I have the opportunity to represent my country at a third Olympic Games.
Any chance we have to skate for another Olympic medal, it’s amazing.
The ‘Bird’s Nest’ National Stadium, which I helped to conceive, is designed to embody the Olympic spirit of ‘fair competition.’ It tells people that freedom is possible but needs fairness, courage and strength.
Mum was a high-jumper and qualified to go to the Olympics, but it got into the newspapers that she was married to my father, and the church put pressure on her to pull out of the Olympic team, saying, ‘You can’t be exposing all your legs.’ That’s how strong the influence of the church was on us all.
Now if I go back home with an Olympic medal, the reaction of my family will give me immense satisfaction.
Even an unsuccessful Olympic bid can be the source of change within a city if organizers adhere to their vision.
The IOC are the guardians of the Olympic ideal.
For most of the track world, the Olympic year is such a huge year, and it’s a big year for us marathoners too.
We have to harness the Olympic experience and this inspiration young people have to get into sport.
Personal honors never meant much to Bill Russell, one of America’s most successful athletes with 2 college titles, 1 Olympic gold medal and 11 – count ’em, 11 – N.B.A. championships with the Boston Celtics.
I see the opportunity to pursue an Olympic berth as a chance of a lifetime.
The title ‘black swimmer’ makes it seem like I am not supposed to be able to win a gold medal, I am not supposed to be able to break the Olympic record, and that is not true, as I work as hard as anybody else, and I love the sport, and I want to win, just like everybody else.
We all have limitations. I don’t have the right genes to be an Olympic weightlifter. I don’t have the right genetics to be an Olympic sprinter. Or gymnast. Sure, if I trained my whole life, perhaps I could have become fairly decent in those sports.
Yes, I am the Olympic champion, but this is not the end of it. I want all the gold that there is out there, everything that exists in figure skating. In all events, in all competitions.
You can be an Olympic champion in 9.5 secs, but to be the greatest, there’s more to it. It takes a bit of forethought and a lot of mental application.
I played softball at George Washington University, and then I played professionally for the Mid-Michigan Ice. I had a couple of tryouts with the U.S. Olympic Team, but I don’t know if I have a word to describe how bad one of the tryouts was. It was the worst tryout in the history of tryouts. It was that bad.
A lot of guys get out of wrestling immediately after winning a gold medal. Every time another Olympics comes around, it’s always a bunch of fresh faces. For me, to win an Olympic gold and have a chance to win another would be huge for our sport.
I didn’t set out to win Olympic medals, to play at UConn, to play in the WNBA. I just loved to play basketball. It’s really very simple. Then when you start thinking about those other things, that’s when thinking gets complicated.
In wrestling, you’re talking about a fraternity of champions, and I got a chance to be a part of that Olympic championship club. And anyone that ever won the Olympics in wrestling, there’s something different about them.
Having the ambition of becoming Olympic champion is a whole different ambition from wanting to be the greatest.
Already 2008 has proved a tumultuous year in terms of global perceptions of China, and there are still 59 days to go until the Beijing Olympics. The tragedy of the Sichuan earthquake followed hard on the heels of the riots in Tibet and the demonstrations surrounding the Olympic torch relay.
In 2007, I dreamed of Olympic gold but got outpointed in the Olympic trials.
Every now and then, you’ll get one of those days when you’re feeling rubbish or when you have to pretty much drag yourself out of bed to get to training. But then you’ll see the Olympic pool, and all the excitement and adrenaline will come rushing back.
Looking back, I feel very fortunate to have had such a long career. Many skaters end their careers in their early 20s. I had the opportunity to go to two Olympic Games – almost three after being the alternate in 1994 and then in 2006 being injured.
I just want kids to have a chance to go and try an Olympic sport. Every kid has a bike – that’s how I started, and one kid coming along and giving it a go could make that journey to the Olympics.
I got beat real hard and heavy in the Olympic Games in 1968 by a guy who swam an incredible race one time in his whole life, but he did it right at the right time. I’d like to be that guy now. Maybe that’s what I’m going to have to pull out of my hat to make the Olympic team.
My mom was a two-time Olympic champion and when I start to play hockey I dream that if I have chance to play for my country I will do it every time they ask me.
I have run two Olympic ‘A’ standard times over the past 12 months and with the time I ran at the African Championships last week I know my speed and fitness are constantly improving so that I will peak in time for the Olympics.
The Olympic Spirit is neither the property of one race nor of one age.
At nine, my mom used to tell me she saw an Olympic medalist in me. I used to take it as a joke, but she was very serious.
‘Ghost Canoe’ takes place on the storm-tossed tip of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, where I spent a lot of time hiking and exploring.
I grew up learning martial arts in Korea; my dad actually brought in an Olympic instructor to teach me as a teenager.
The Olympic Games are always in the head of every sports athlete. We work for that. The Olympics are the most important race. They’re each four years, and everybody wants to show their best performance.
If I can inspire at least one per cent to live what I lived being a part of the Canadian Olympic team then I’m very happy with that.
I don’t have anything Olympic in our house – no pictures, none of that stuff. Consciously I do that. With 10 children, I don’t want to hold that over their heads.
Female success stories from sporting events like the Olympic Games have played a role in shifting the Indian perception to see the female athlete as a hero and a role model for young Indian girls.
I said back in 2010 when I was rubbish at the European championships, ‘If I never win an omnium until 2012, I don’t care.’ I then won Olympic gold.
You don’t win the Olympic to make millions. People are always like, ‘Where is your Lamborghini?’
I pointed out that the Atlanta Olympic bomber – as well as Timothy McVeigh and the people who protest against gay rights at military funerals – are Christians but we journalists don’t identify them by their religion.
We feel like we’re the Olympic gold medallists and we have the opportunity to bring that gold home. That will be our goal and short of that we would probably be disappointed.
I graduated from Improv Olympic. I used to do standup comedy.
It’s humbling how my peers view me as not only one of the best Olympic power and weightlifters, but as an athlete.
Being an Olympic athlete doesn’t change who you are as a person.
My training has been going really well these past few days and my goal is to keep it up for the next few weeks and hopefully earn a spot on the U.S. Olympic team.
So far, my goals stops at making an Olympic team, and then if that happens, then I’ll jot down more goals.
The two designs are completely different. The first is totally futuristic, the second is more classical. You can of course get very excited about doing something completely out of the ordinary, just like the Olympic stadium in its time. But each to his or her own taste.
Our first ever live gig was in front of Buckingham Palace, an Olympic event attended by some of the royal family, and we had to follow James Brown.
Nothing I have done professionally will top the feeling I got when singing with John Farnham at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney.
I’m happy to see that more girls are going into weightlifting and aiming to become Olympic medalists as well.
People are saying I hold and spoil, but you don’t get to win Olympic gold without a bit of power and ability.
I am very happy my Olympic dream has come true.
One thing I’ve learned from winning an Olympic medal is that it’s really exhausting.
I don’t have all this money people think Olympic athletes have.
You learn a lot from your first Olympic Games experience. Everyone thinks they’re prepared, but you never are.
From meeting Robert Plant, John Bonham, and John Paul Jones, teaming up, rehearsing, playing selected gigs outside of Britain, coming back into Olympic Studios to record the first album, and then going to America, which we crack open like a nut with the debut record – all that happened, literally, within months.
I have the mentality of a winner. I first went to the Olympic Games when I was 17, three weeks after my O-levels, and I remember sitting in a dining-hall filled with the world’s best athletes.
I’ve seen some folks with Olympic backgrounds go into combat sports and it just not being for them. You know, doing Judo or something else you might excel, but as soon as a punches are flying, they’re out.
Olympic medals are the one medal that I don’t have; I’ve won just about every other competition that I’ve been at.
It’s like someone important is missing from a party because you can’t imagine an Olympic gymnastics competition without Romania.
I’ve been with Team Canada for a lot of World Cups and World Championships, and to be part of an Olympic team would be a huge thrill for me.
I thought that when I won the Olympic trials I was going to be the happiest person in the whole world. And I was happy. But it wasn’t like I thought it was going to be. I had already imagined it in my head so many times. It was real before it happened.
I absolutely think I have the ability to be a world-class athlete and make a team. But even if I never make another world championship team or Olympic team, I think there are so many things I can say about the sport that can really excite me and bring me a lot of motivation in the day to day.
After one Olympics, if we invest in sports and say we will get a gold medal in the next Olympic, it doesn’t work like that in sports. How it works is that you provide the infrastructure, provide education about nutrition and health.
The spirit of the Olympic movement is great for young people because it teaches them about the training and discipline required to compete. Even if they don’t make the teams, they can rededicate their lives to the art of sport, discipline, and physical fitness.
There is a lot of scope for improvement but as we enter the home stretch for the Olympic preparations, we know the biggest challenge for us is to remain consistent with our performances.
To do a PB in an Olympic final – I’m pretty happy – you can’t ask for more, that’s the fastest time I have ever swum.
People say, ‘Wow, you’ve achieved it all this year: two world championship wins and an Olympic gold medal.’ And I think, ‘Yeah, but how come I feel so unsatisfied and under pressure all over again?’
It’s very special that the Olympics is in London. As a first Olympic experience, it’s going to be pretty incredible.
I went to five Olympic Games and my favorite is Sydney.
An Olympic medal in athletics is still a dream for India. Milkha Singh is the torchbearer for young athletes to achieve that goal.
Tennis is not really a traditional Olympic sport.
There is a pressure in this country that comes from being a boxer with an Olympic medal and then turning pro.
All of the major events are fun. Obviously the Olympic Games is top.
Being named to the Olympic team has special meaning to it because I feel like I’ve come full circle.
I never thought about competing in the Olympic Games when I was growing up.
A goal of making it to the Olympic Games has motivated me to work very hard in my sport.
Because I am Olympic champion, everyone assumes I am this perfect athlete who should never lose. Every time I step in the ring, I am expected to win.
Every once in a while I run the Olympic downhill in Japan in my head. I think of how the energy is going to flow and then I make it all work for myself.
When you win an Olympic gold, it is such a powerful feeling that stays with you for the rest of your life.
I’ve reached out to other mayors throughout the United States to form an Olympic Task Force of Mayors, and to community leaders, Congress, and businesspeople. As thousands of people around the country join the movement, it gets more and more exciting.
An Olympic pursuit really takes a full three to four years of Olympic preparation.
From the time I started boxing, my dream was to win an Olympic gold medal. At 10, I can’t say I knew how big the Olympics are. I just knew that every kid in the gym wanted to win an Olympic gold medal. Every kid in every gym probably wants to win an Olympic gold medal.
You always imagine everything will go so smoothly in the Olympic season.
I dreamed of being a professional skater once. I wanted to be a Korean Olympic skater, but I wasn’t good enough, so I quit.
Holding an Olympic Games means evoking history.
Part of me worries about upsetting people, because we all have perceptions about Olympic champions.
I missed the Olympic team in 1996 – missed making the team. I tried to make a comeback in my sport, and soon after the Olympic trials, Johann Olav Koss, who is a Norwegian speed-skater, called me up and asked me to be a part of Olympic Aid. Now Olympic Aid is Right to Play. It’s a wonderful, narrow focus.
As an Olympic athlete, especially a female Olympic athletic, social media’s such an amazing place, people are so positive, all these young girls. Anything negative is such a small space, people aren’t coming at you for their gender.
Over the years, I’ve made many sacrifices to win two Olympic gold medals and put together winning streaks that will never be broken.
If someone told me a couple years ago, ‘You’re going to be deep into show jumping with horses,’ I would be like, I didn’t even know that’s an Olympic sport.
In my eyes, I will never be up there with the Sir Steve Redgraves and the Sir Chris Hoys of this world. It’s not something that drives me; I just enjoy going to the Olympic Games. Just to be mentioned in the same breath as those people is an honour for me. I don’t ever think about those kind of things.
I would encourage people to participate in sports. You don’t have to dream of being an Olympic or a professional athlete.
To organize an Olympic Games is probably the most complex thing on the planet because it has so many moving parts.
I would be happy with an Olympic bronze. What I don’t have is an Olympic medal.
I have been skiing since I was in school, but I’m not great. I am never going to break an Olympic record, I just want to go down the hills, on red or blue runs, but not… black.
In Jamaica High School in New York, my coach was Larry Ellis, and he said I could probably make the Olympic team. He gave me something to shoot for.
Hosting the Olympic Games of course guarantees the world’s attention, but there is more to it than simply bathing in the global spotlight. Most importantly, host cities can use the opportunity to create a positive and lasting legacy, resulting in both tangible and intangible returns to local communities.
I’ll have to say winning the Olympic gold in Atlanta is a crowning achievement, along with the gold in the relay in the same games.
I want to be recognised as exemplifying the Olympic spirit – one of the last true Olympians.
I’m sure that if Ronda could take time off, go to the gym and train for three months for a fight with Holly Holm with absolutely no distractions, I don’t even want to imagine the Ronda Rousey we’re going to see come out. Again, we are talking top of the food chain, Olympic, amazing athlete.
If the Olympic Spirit is about overcoming every hurdle and accepting no limits, then I think Samsung is a great ambassador for these values.
I am almost 30 so I am approaching this one as if it will be my last Olympic Games. I want to put out 110 percent to make sure that I am up at the top.
Growing up in Alaska, they don’t really teach you to swim there. I learned to swim just a few summers ago with Olympic gold medalist Amanda Beard. She did great, and right after that I went to get scuba certified. I had fun with it. I didn’t really get scared, but some people thought that was a risk.
One of the most common misconceptions about Olympic sports is that they only happen at the Olympics.
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.
During my time, squash was not even part of Asian or Commonwealth Games. Considering the dominance of Jansher Khan and I in the ’80s and ’90s, it goes without saying that Pakistan would have bagged a plethora of medals through us at these games. And yes, the ultimate prize would have been an Olympic gold.
Coming out of the Olympic Games, I was the golden boy and I got put up on a pedestal. I got stuff handed to me.
I’d like to work with horses, but it doesn’t pay very well. Maybe I’d like to go somewhere in the Middle East because they keep buying really nice horses for their Olympic teams – like, the Qataris.
The evidence of our divided racial self was all over the Obama presidency from the beginning: from the shouts of ‘you lie’ from the well of Congress as he spoke to a joint session, to the unprecedented spectacle of American conservatives rooting against their own country being awarded the Olympic Games.
I love all sports! I’m always impressed by athletes. I also love watching the Olympic Games. In high school, I played co-ed soccer and basketball. I really enjoyed both of those sports, but I have to admit basketball wasn’t my calling.
As a child I was very involved with sports and I knew at age 9 that I wanted to be an Olympic champion.
As a kid, I trained to be an Olympic gymnast. My schedule was rigorous. Four hours a day, Monday through Saturday, I was at the gym. My body was like a boy’s, narrow hips, flat-chested, wide shoulders. When I was 12, I badly injured my ankle and was forced to stop training immediately.
I always said I wanted an Olympic medal. It’s the pinnacle of any athlete’s career.
It was my goal and dream to be selected to the Olympic team, so I knew going into it the amount of responsibility I was given.
The 2012 London Olympic Games fostered a generation of hope. I witnessed women participating for the very first time, representing every nation.
My father’s encouragement is what has brought me this far, because when I grew up I wanted to be like him, and I knew I had that ability to become an athlete. Being an Olympian is one of the greatest things, and being an Olympic gold medallist is one of the most prestigious titles in the world.
As an Olympic champion gymnast, I have always stayed involved in my sport.
I am actively campaigning for ‘chest hair’ to become an Olympic sport.
My life has been going in ways I never could have dreamed of – doing the closing celebration for the Olympic Games and being appointed the creative chair for jazz at the L.A. Philharmonic. So I’ve just decided I’ll go with my flow and be very prepared.
To win Olympic gold has been a dream for me for seven or eight years now, so it was amazing to actually achieve that.
Jim Thorpe is someone I’ve always loved. He was an Olympic athlete, you know, and a football player from back in the day. I’d love to play him. And then there’s a guy called Iceman who was a top hit man for the mob. I would love to play him. Actually, it’s sort of in the works, so I hope it goes through.
Little did I know that there’s nothing more competitive in the world than a professional ballroom dancer. They are as competitive as Olympic athletes.
To work on the competition wear for the Olympics is kind of insane. As a fashion designer, you don’t think to yourself, ‘I’m going to get the opportunity to work with athletes at that level at the Olympic Games.’ It really is such an incredible thing to have any kind of contact with as a designer.
Football, basketball, and the Olympic sports all have their problems with banned substances.
I’ve always been the, ‘Sure, I’ll try that’ guy. I’m very adventurous and don’t have fears. I think I got that from my mother’s side because she was an Olympic skier. Jump off a mountain with a parachute? Sure. What could possibly go wrong?
In college, I was an education major and qualified for several jobs. But the fame that came with the Olympic medals was too threatening to many people.
Who am I just to give up on track? This is something I’ve dreamed about since I was 9 years old, being an Olympic champion.
For sure, 2010 was the best year I’ve ever had. It couldn’t have gone any better for me. Even if I just won the Olympic gold medal, that would have made it the best year of my career and the best day of my life, period. Winning the World Cup races and the overall title just topped it off.
I started track and field when I was 12 and didn’t get to an Olympic Games until I was nearly 23. By any stretch of the imagination that’s a very long apprenticeship.
My only real claim to fame is that I was southern England show-jumping champion in 1966. The day after my father died, ‘Horse & Hound’ magazine tipped me as a future Olympic champion, and I took it seriously. You can only really enjoy something if you take it seriously.
I think one of the greatest gigs I played, and we’ve had many, but to play the opening ceremony at – at the Olympic games in Athens 2004 was pretty special, you know? Because it’s such a big deal for the whole world. And the whole world’s watching. So that was definitely one of the special ones.
It is very good to be Olympic champion, but that is not the strongest field.
I got an Olympic medal.
I don’t want my Olympic experience to be about Mike Pence. You know, I want it to be about my amazing skating and being America’s sweetheart.
To win like that, in Scottish kit, in the U.K., beating the Olympic champion, hearing Scotland the Brave on the podium, I was very emotional.
I love sports – I used to play volleyball really competitively…I went to Junior Olympic qualifiers, and I’ve ridden horses my whole life.
If I bring back only one gold people are going to say it’s a disappointment. But not too many of them own an Olympic gold medal so if I get one I’m going to be happy.
There will be no one like me in the history of Olympics, someone who competed in an Olympic final with one international meet.
Selecting Budapest would not only be a new city and country for the Olympic Games, but put the region on the map. We want to organise the first Central Eastern Europe Olympics.
I have always wanted an Olympic medal. I always wanted to see India’s national flag going up at the podium.
It’s amazing to get one Olympic gold, but you have to be a legend to get two. And that’s definitely my aim.
10,000 athletes go and compete at an Olympic Games, only 300 go back with a gold medal, the number is very, very less.
The Olympic dream was born in 2010 during the qualifications to Vancouver. And when I was watching those Olympics from the sidelines, I felt that I wanted to have my Games. I understood that it wouldn’t be easy to make them, especially now that in Russia there are a lot of strong girls.
I feel like the thing that motivates me is not making the Olympic team. If I’m having a rough day, I think about how bad I want it.
To have full and multiple criteria is the best way to decide who is best prepared to be on that Olympic team.
And in nineteen seventy two I almost wasn’t, on the team, but I knew about it just before Olympic Games for three months before this why this is was not very good for me. I’d been ready to go, you know.
I am European Games champion now as well as Olympic champion, European champion, and world champion.
You don’t want to play in League One and League Two pitches – you want to play on a massive pitch in the Olympic Stadium with beautiful grass.
I’ve won the African Cup, I’ve won an Olympic gold medal. That says everything.
Olympic Style lifting compliments sprint training perfectly. It does this by making sure everything in the body is ‘fully connected.’ This is based on the principle that all movements have a kinetic chain.
We train and work so hard in our sport, we would be nothing less than a warrior. Day in, day out, this is our life. It’s everything. The Olympic dream.
The Olympic movement is divided into two very distinct eras.
The feeling of accomplishment welled up inside of me, three Olympic gold medals. I knew that was something nobody could ever take away from me, ever.
We had a whole bunch of perks after the Olympic games like having dinner with the Queen of England and being hosted by the Prince of Monaco. We got to drop pucks at hockey games. We got to go on quite a tour.
Growing up, I would never have thought that I’d be a double Olympic champion, with a lovely home and beautiful kids.
The Olympic movement has made a conscious attempt to make sports and disciplines urban in nature.
I am grateful for my time with U.S. Speedskating and U.S.A. Baseball, as well as for all of my teammates, and I am humbled to lead Team U.S.A. into the Tokyo Olympic Games.
Any good broadcast, not just an Olympic broadcast, should have texture to it. It should have information, should have some history, should have something that’s offbeat, quirky, humorous, and where called for it, should have journalism, and judiciously it should also have commentary. That’s my ideal.
I came back from the Olympic Games, and straightaway, I’m this role model. So that means I can’t mess around with my mates like I used to because, if I do, people are going to use it to knock me down.
My goals were last year to win the world champs and this year to win the Olympic Games and I’ve done that and I couldn’t be happier.
The Olympic Games and the World Championships will be my big goals.
I’ve lifted weights ever since I was a teenager, but I started going more towards the Olympic weightlifting style, which is clean and jerk.
We don’t like to be forced off our own tour, onto foreign soil, to qualify for our Olympic teams. That’s ridiculous.
I remember watching the 1992 Barcelona Games on TV, and I watched Limba Ram shoot. That was my first exposure to the Olympic Games.
From 15 or 16, I always wanted to be an Olympic champion, but I don’t think you ever believe it until it actually happens.
While growing up, my dream and my goal was to win an Olympic gold medal. I did that, and both times, they were the proudest moments in my amateur career.
In 2004 after winning my first Olympic gold medal I was featured in magazines as an eligible bachelor. Soon after I started receiving unique and odd fan mail, mainly from female prisoners. I’ve gotten prison art and love letters throughout the years.
It’s like a dream come true, coming to the Olympic trails and leaving being the champion.
I watched my idol and fellow Dutchman Tiesto. He was the first DJ to play live on stage at an Olympic event – the Opening Ceremony of the 2004 Summer Olympic Games in Athens. At eight years old, all I can remember thinking was, ‘I want to be a DJ.’
The women of the Senate are like the U.S. Olympic team: we come in different sizes, but we sure are united in our determination to do the best for our country!
Every Olympic athlete prepares differently. For me, I am 100 percent into the sport. And if I decide to really make a crucial career decision to say, ‘This is something I want to do,’ I want to leave no stone unturned in my preparation.
Gymnastics is my favorite Olympic sport, hands-down.
I looked at it, and it was like, ‘Can I push and make the Olympic squad?’ It is tough going from 18 players, including Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. I thought that might be a push too far for me. I had no Champions League with Chelsea. I lost my motivation.
To win a gold medal at Olympic Games has long been my dream ever since I started my career as a table tennis player.
You can’t be a creative thinker if you’re not stimulating your mind, just as you can’t be an Olympic athlete if you don’t train regularly.
Billy Konchellah with his World Championship titles, Paul Ereng with his Olympic gold and Wilson Kipketer with his World records are my role models.
I was fortunate enough to coach the U.S. Olympic team in Australia.
I think a four-year ban would effectively rule out one Olympic games – a life ban is too harsh. I think everyone deserves a second chance. If you come back from missing one Olympic games and serving a four-year ban, you are a pretty determined and reformed character.
In the history of sport in general, people stick around. Look at Shaun White and Lindsey Vonn just continue on, Olympic cycle after Olympic cycle; that is why they are famous.
I am very proud of my mom and consider her the most courageous woman I know. With perseverance, sacrifice and hard work, she raised a family of Olympic athletes and gave us the tools and the spirit to succeed. That is something that my brothers and I will always be thankful for.
In my very first interview, at nine years old, I said I wanted to be an Olympic gold medalist. That was the first time I said it out loud in front of somebody other than my parents.
I can’t say I have a lucky charm, but I do wear a 3/4-zip U.S.A. jacket I wear to every event. I got it from Nike, and it was from the 2012 Olympic Games.
I have played a few times in Barcelona, including the fantastic Olympic Stadium. It’s undoubtedly one of my favourite cities in terms of the people, arts, food, architecture and design.
This week, the world gathers in Beijing for the 2008 Olympic games. This is the extraordinary moment China has been dreaming of for 100 years. People have been longing for this moment, because it symbolises a turning point in China’s relationship with the outside world.
If you’re the Olympic champion then they have to wait four more years to get you again.
I have always had a dream to take part in an Olympic Games, and losing my leg didn’t change anything.
I want to get another Olympic medal outside the team event.
If the IOC would move the Olympic hockey tournament to the summer, that would be great. We’d be thrilled to have our players participate because then it doesn’t affect our season.
The Olympic Games are a global celebration of our hopes, our ideals and our values.
2012 has been an extraordinary year for our country. We cheered our Queen to the rafters with the Jubilee, showed the world what we’re made of by staging the most spectacular Olympic and Paralympic Games ever and – let’s not forget – punched way above our weight in the medals table.
Everybody kept saying I wasn’t going to get any fights. And they wouldn’t put me on TV and they don’t respect women’s boxing. But I also turned professional with two Olympic gold medals and that’s something that no other American boxer has ever done. With that, I’ve been getting a lot of respect.
There’s a lot of skaters that I look up to, and I think my biggest skating role models were the two Russian competitors at the 2002 Olympic games in Salt Lake City. They really motivated me to follow my passion in skating, and it really blossomed from there.
There are no words to describe what it would mean making the Olympic team.
If I’d gone into taekwondo, I’d probably have won several Olympic medals.
I always thought, it would be neat to make the Olympic team.
I want to be European, world and Olympic gold medallist.
I really didn’t feed off the whole Olympic experience at all, and I regret that from an athletic perspective, and also from a personal experience. I feel like I missed out, so I’m not going to do that this time.
In some ways, I’m in danger of doing too many things to be able to appreciate and enjoy them. I look forward to thinking back to carrying the Olympic torch, or going to the Royal Wedding, when I’m in the middle of the ocean on my own far from anywhere – that’s when I’ll relive those moments.
The Olympic Games are always in the head of every sports athlete. We work for that.
People who want to be singers can be nurtured and taught, and they can make great strides. But, the truth is, if you are completely tone deaf, it is never going to happen for you. It’s just a reality of life. It’s like me thinking I can be an Olympic swimmer. It ain’t gonna happen!
If I won a second Olympic title, maybe I would be tempted to go after a third.
What I can tell them is the way you become an Olympic champion is to start working now. I tell them why it’s always worth it to put the time and effort into something you want to be good at.
I still can’t believe I’m an Olympic athlete.
There is enough going on in Olympic year without having to do my own cooking and washing.
Every international meeting or championship I do, I can cope a lot better because I can say I did the 100 m. hurdles, opened up the athletics at an Olympic Games in front of a home crowd, 80,000 people.
People always say I’m a legend, but I’m not. Not until I’ve defended my Olympic titles. That’s when I’ve decided I’ll be a legend.
That’s because the International Olympic Committee has a policy of never replacing medals.
I’ve done it the hard way – first Olympic gold medallist from Great Britain to win a world title, the ‘road warrior.’ I love that tag because I do travel.
People tell me an Olympic medal is a life-changing event. Except I don’t even think about the medal unless someone asks about it.
As a British fashion designer, it is an amazing, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be creative director of Team GB as the hosting nation of the London 2012 Olympic Games.
