Medal Quotes

Yes, winning the gold medal was undoubtedly the biggest day of my career - mostly because I won the way I had prepared to run it. It was a totally satisfying experience.

I wasn't really expecting me to win the gold in this race. To get another medal for myself and for the U.S. was a pretty good thing to happen, I'd say.

On no further occasion present a flag or medal to an Indian.

For so long I wanted to win the gold medal.Then I won. I had to figure out what was the new motivation to take myself to that place again.

I showed everyone the medal and they said, 'Ooh, I can't believe how heavy it is,' Sometimes they were more interested in the medal than in me. I was like, 'Hey, what about me?'

You want to come home from a tournament with a winner's medal. That's not the fans or the media putting us under pressure, that's the pressure we put ourselves under.

My goal is one Olympic gold medal. Not many people in this world can say, 'I'm an Olympic gold medalist.'

I was still young when I missed Beijing. I was favourite to win a medal but I knew I had time. My coach advised me to stay at school and finish my exams. Even if I had gone and won the Olympics, I might not have handled the pressure. So I moved on.

As a soccer player, I wanted an FA Cup winner's medal. As an actor you want an Oscar. As a chef it's three-Michelin's stars, there's no greater than that. So pushing yourself to the extreme creates a lot of pressure and a lot of excitement, and more importantly, it shows on the plate.

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.

But probably this is helps to win, to win, to gold, more gold medals, and to win most my important medal, heart of people. This is most important for me.

My kids love it. I thought I was the coolest dad in the world when I got to be in a Bond film, but 'Harry Potter', too? Well, I think I qualify for a medal for exceptional parenting or something, don't you?

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.

I think the biggest thing was that I was putting pressure on myself leading up to Beijing. Now I am learning how to take that pressure off and seeing this as an incredible opportunity, but not like, 'I absolutely have to medal.'

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.

Looking back, I'm almost happy I lost that fight. Just imagine if I would have come back to Germany with a victory. I had nothing to do with the Nazis, but they would have given me a medal. After the war I might have been considered a war criminal.

I think as a Canadian hockey player, you go through it in your mind so many times, being able to stand on that blue line and hear your national anthem play and being a gold medal champion, you dream of that. And then to be able to accomplish that and actually win a gold medal and represent your country its an amazing feeling.

To anyone who has started out on a long campaign believing that the gold medal was destined for him, the feeling when, all of a sudden, the medal has gone somewhere else is quite indescribable.

London 2012 is all about winning a medal. Not just any medal, the gold medal.

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.

Through everything I've gone through- and I've been everywhere, at the top of the world, in jail, hung over drunk - I never gave up my dream of winning a gold medal in the Olympics.

Although it was a great accomplishment to win a gold medal, as soon as they put it on you, that's it; your career is over.

If you dream and you allow yourself to dream you can do anything. And that's what this Olympic medal represents.

If I do something for my kids, I get a medal, because most fathers don't.

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.

Winning an Olympic gold medal is like nothing else.

I graduated a the top of my class in the '84 Olympic Games; I won a gold medal.

My skating is a very emotional thing that comes from the heart, never doing it for the medal.

I've always dreamed of an Olympic medal.

One minute you're a developing athlete trying to get to the top, then the next minute you do well and win a medal somewhere, and then it's all foisted on you. You never know when it's going to happen. You don't think about the media side of things when you're a young athlete trying to do well.