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.
