Best Olympic Quotes

#1. When I feel like my body is exhausted, I focus on making my fifth Olympic team so I can push through it.

Dana Torres

#2. My mentality has always been, If I'm not the best at something, then I might as well be the best at something else. I realized that I wasn't going to be an Olympic volleyball player, but I knew I could model at that level.

Gigi Hadid

#3. 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.

Mary Decker

#4. 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.

Lindsey Vonn

#5. In my Olympic history I don't think I have achieved my potential as an athlete. That's what I want when I look back at my career. I want to be able to say I gave it my best shot.

Paula Radcliffe

#6. Yesterday the flame of the Olympic torch was carried through our great state on its way to Salt Lake City.

Jane D. Hull

#7. 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.

Gagan Narang

#8. Your Olympic Hero is scheduled to wrestle a match against the man they call the big red retard; not that I have anything against retarded people cause I don't. As a matter of fact, I have a lot of retarded fans out there that admire and respect your Olympic Hero, and I wish them well.

Kurt Angle

#9. Being an Olympic Medalist was a team effort. So I am honored to be a part of CBS Sports' WE NEED TO TALK cast of iconic women. Being part of a show with some of my broadcasting and sports idols is an honor.

Dara Torres

#10. 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.

George Foreman

#11. People could see in me who I am now, an Olympic champ, the best in the world.

Cathy Freeman

#12. I am Olympic champion for life, and I have learned to enjoy what that means.

Jade Jones

#13. People say that it was degrading for an Olympic champion to run against a horse, but what was I supposed to do? I had four gold medals, but you can't eat four gold medals. There was no
television, no big advertising, no endorsements then. Not for a black man, anyway.

Jesse Owens

#14. I used to have a wild night with three women until 5am., but I am getting older. In the Olympic village here, I will live it up with five women, but only until 3am.

Alberto Tomba

#15. 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.

George Foreman

#16. It's amazing to get one Olympic gold, but you have to be a legend to get two. And that's definitely my aim.

Jade Jones

#17. It's been strange and weird watching the other girls at the U.S. Olympic trials just because I was training to be out there myself.

Shawn Johnson

#18. I got injured at the Olympic Trials in 2000. I could not jump. I could not walk on my leg properly. I couldn't bend my knee. I couldn't straighten it.

Dominique Moceanu

#19. He thoroughly intended to do some major grovelling. Olympic-style begging, if necessary.

Christy Reece

#20. Bill Russell is one of the great names in basketball, an all-American ... and the only athlete to ever win an NCAA Championship, an Olympic Gold Medal, and a professional championship all in the same year-1956 ... But Bill Russell had this one problem: He threw up before every game.

John Eliot

#21. 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.

Tom Brokaw

#22. 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.

Daley Thompson

#23. 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.

George Vecsey

#24. 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!

Barbara Mikulski

#25. Be Your Best Without the Stress!Be the director and actor in your movie, called My Life.

Katrina Radke

#26. My very best memory of Montreal was the moment inside the Olympic arena when I was waiting under the stadium and those majestic gates opened up. It was a whole other world.

Sugar Ray Leonard

#27. 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.

Kurt Angle

#28. If the Olympic Games ever served a true altruistic purpose, they have long since outlived it. Yeah, the pursuit of athletic excellence, sportsmanship and international goodwill is plenty noble. But the modern Olympics are at best a vehicle for agitprop; at worst, a scandal magnet.

John Ridley

#29. 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.

Bianca Walkden

#30. 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.

Lakshmi Mittal

#31. I'm so over the moon that I have the opportunity to represent my country at a third Olympic Games.

Libby Trickett

#32. 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.

Daley Thompson

#33. To me the Olympic spirit embodies the magic of competition, hard work and coming to a point in your career when you're around the best athletes in the world, and having the whole world watching.

Julia Mancuso

#34. Join me in Olympic Heros for Abstinence. The best sex is no sex.

Kurt Angle

#35. The sportive, knightly battle awakens the best human characteristics. It doesn't separate, but unites the combatants in understanding and respect. He also helps to connect the countries in the spirit of peace. That's why the Olympic Flame should never die.

Adolf Hitler

#36. Breaking my neck was the best thing that ever happened to me. I have an Olympic medal. I've been to so many countries I would never have been, met so many people I would never have met. I've done more in the chair, ... than a whole hell of a lot of people who aren't in chairs.

Mark Zupan

#37. To have full and multiple criteria is the best way to decide who is best prepared to be on that Olympic team.

Ashley Wagner

#38. 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.

Tina Maze

#39. This year I spent two months in Australia, and I did all the training camps in London. It was a really hard winter because I want to give the best performance of my career at the Olympic Games! That is the only title I'm missing and I will do my best to take it!

Peter Kauzer

#40. First and foremost, my involvement within the Olympic pursuit and Games were obviously surrounded by only putting the absolute best nutrients into my body.

Apolo Ohno

#41. 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.

Paula Radcliffe

#42. In those years,'80 was the, at the turn of '79/'80 you had the invasion of Afghanistan. It was the period in which the Americans attempt to liberate, to, to liberate the hostages in Iran and all these, all these things, the atmosphere was freezing - boycott of the Olympic Games and all that.

Helmut Schmidt

#43. P. Diddy's gonna be exhausted, you know, running with the Olympic torch in one hand and the torch he'll always carry for J-Lo in the other.

Doug Benson

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

Sasha Cohen

#45. I hope it really comes off. It would make my dad really proud. (about the song for the coming 2004 Summer Olympic Games in Athens, Greece)

George Michael

#46. 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.

Sebastian Coe

#47. 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.

Paula Radcliffe

#48. Olympic organizers are reportedly struggling to fill rows and rows of empty seats. Empty seats! In fact, yesterday officials put out a casting call asking for 200 Europeans or eight Americans.

Conan O'Brien

#49. The marathon is a charismatic event. It has everything. It has drama. It has competition. Every jogger can't dream of being an Olympic champion, but he can dream of finishing a marathon.

Fred Lebow

#50. It took me time to realize that the men who won Olympic gold medals in the decathlon are just men, just like me.

Dan O'Brien

#51. 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.

Ai Weiwei

#52. If your Olympic Hero were to use the Worm in the 1996 Olympic Games, it would be so embarassing to all the other atheletes - and our country, mind you- that the USA would have finished behind Guam.

Kurt Angle

#53. Being an Olympic runner and now a mommy, it is so important to me to help my children learn early on how to be active and stay healthy.

Carrie Tollefson

#54. Many track and field people know that if I stay relaxed and run my race like I'm supposed to, I will be the winner at the Olympic Games.

Asafa Powell

#55. All the guys called the Olympic Village a high-class Boy Scout camp.

Johnny Weissmuller

#56. It is very good to be Olympic champion, but that is not the strongest field.

Martin Lel

#57. I've never played the Olympic Club. I have played Lytham, but only some amateur events. I haven't played Kiawah.

Luke Donald

#58. 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.

Ai Weiwei

#59. 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.

Adelina Sotnikova

#60. 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.

George Vecsey

#61. The right place at the right time never comes to people standing still. - CHLOE TODD, A.K.A. BABY T-REX, OLYMPIC HOPEFUL, UNWITTING IMMORTAL

Kresley Cole

#62. Being the first Olympic medallist of my country means that I have some obligations and it was a very tough job for me to resume a proper training schedule due to the (new) status I have in my country.

Benjamin Boukpeti

#63. 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.

Lolo Jones

#64. The Olympic games are already there and we don't have even half of what you need to train well.

Dayron Robles

#65. It has been a wonderful experience to compete in the Olympic Games and to bring home a gold medal. But since I have been a young lad, I have had my eyes on a different prize. You see, each one of us is in a greater race than any I have run in Paris, and this race ends when God gives out the medals.

Eric Liddell

#66. The Olympic Games is holy. Athletes from around the world, including myself, of course, dream to participate.

Yao Ming

#67. A champion, he said, wins a World Series or an Olympic and is hoisted on the shoulders of teammates and fans. A hero carries the people on his shoulders. Champions live for the moment- heroes, like Jackie Robinson, transcend time.

Sharon Robinson

#68. Hopefully before I'm done, I can be on an Olympic team.

Kevin Durant

#69. 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.

Frank Shorter

#70. 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.

Diana Lopez

#71. When you look back from your Olympic experience, you never want to question whether you could have done more. The one thing you can control is your off-ice preparation.

Angela Ruggiero

#72. 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.

Jackie Joyner-Kersee

#73. The essential thing is not to have conquered, but to have fought well.

Pierre De Coubertin

#74. My overwhelming concern will always be the well-being of the athletes. In Olympic sport, it is rare for competitors not to devote half their young life to this. Their families will have given up all sorts of things to allow them to do that.

Sebastian Coe

#75. 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.

David Rudisha

#76. 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.

Apolo Ohno

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

Olga Korbut

#78. Throughout its history, the international Olympic Committee has struggled to spread its ideal of fraternity, friendship, peace and universal understanding.

Juan Antonio Samaranch

#79. If you're the Olympic champion then they have to wait four more years to get you again.

Usain Bolt

#80. As an athlete, I hope we can remain focused on the Olympic spirit which celebrates achievement in sport by peoples of all nations.

Brian Boitano