Olympic Quotes

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?'

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.

Olympic medals are the one medal that I don't have; I've won just about every other competition that I've been at.

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.

The Olympic Games of the Modern Era began in 1896 in the city of Athens.

The good feeling I get from contributing rivals anything I felt on the Olympic stand in Albertville.

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.

My academic schedule is lighter this year because it's an Olympic year.

So when people go to the park this summer, they are not going to have the same quality of a visit. There is not going to be a ranger out on the trail to tell them about the important cultural and historic areas within the Olympic National Park.

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.

The pressure of the Olympic Games is real overwhelming.

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.

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 really feel like that concept of enjoying the now and not worrying about the future is what my coach has been trying to teach me for 14 years - and that is what has made me such a different athlete 10 years later, and that is what has made me strong enough mentally to make this Olympic team.

I can't even imagine what it's like and right now I'm like in shock, I can't believe that I'm Olympic Champion.

And, in nineteen seventy two Olympic Games I wasn't really going to be a star, and overnight I became a star.

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.

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.

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.

Most other competitions are individual achievements, but the Olympic Games is something that belongs to everybody.

We are experiencing such large support for the Olympic relay that our advice is to stay in your neighbourhood, stay in your borough and wait for it to come near you.

Nothing I have done professionally will top the feeling I got when singing with John Farnham at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney.

The Olympic Games were created for the exhaltation of the individual athlete.

Of course, most people remember that I received the first perfect 10 in Olympic gymnastics competition.

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.

For too long the world has failed to recognise that the Olympic Games and the Olympic Movement are about fine athletics and fine art.

They're still considered Olympic eligibles, so there's never an issue whether they're going to turn pro or not. When they get to that level, money is never an issue. They make so much money now.

Winning an Olympic gold medal is like nothing else.

I didn't train to make the Olympic team until 1968. I simply trained for the moment. I never even imagined I would be an Olympic athlete. It always seemed to evolve.

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.