Olympic Gold Medal Quotes

#1. 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

#2. 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

#3. 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

#4. 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.

Dan O'Brien

#5. It's a level of strength and character that few of us can imagine; a grace under pressure that few of us will ever attain. It's why an Olympic gold medal would not have made us love or admire her more.

Peggy Fleming

#6. 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.

Inge De Bruijn

#7. 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

#8. An Olympic medal is the greatest achievement and honor that can be received by an athlete. I would swap any World Title to have won gold at the Olympics.

Jeff Fenech

#9. She would have got a gold medal in social climbing if it was an Olympic sport

Marlene Perez

#10. Humility was a cult in my family. I only got it out of my father by accident when he was very old that he had won an Olympic gold medal.

Hugh Laurie

#11. 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.

Charles Krauthammer

#12. The favorite to win the Olympic gold medal in archery is a legally blind athlete from South Korea, mainly because everyone else is too scared to compete next to him.

Jimmy Fallon

#13. 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.

Kim Yuna

#14. What if winning the gold medal at the Olympics wasn't the end?
What if ... it was only the beginning?

Amanda Dubin

#15. You don't win an Olympic gold medal with a few weeks of intensive training.

Seth Godin

#16. Winning an Olympic gold medal is like nothing else.

Rebecca Lobo

#17. Now that I have an Olympic medal in my room, it makes me hungry for another and a different color one.

Gracie Gold

#18. I won the Olympic gold medal in Rome, Italy. Olympic champion. The Russian standing right here, and the Pole right here.

Muhammad Ali

#19. The 2002 (Olympic) team was a great team, we won the gold medal, they deserved all the accolades that they got. But this team seems to have a little more depth and maybe a little more talent to pick from. So it makes the job of picking the right 23 guys even more difficult.

Wayne Gretzky

#20. An Olympic gold medal is something that almost seems like a fantasy. Yes, of course I want it, since I was a little kid, before I even knew what the World Cup tour was.

Hannah Kearney

#21. 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.

Tommy Lasorda

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

Scott Hamilton

#23. 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.

Ryan Lochte

#24. 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.

Chris Klein

#25. 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.

Michael Phelps

#26. 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.

Scott Hamilton

#27. 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.

Dominique Moceanu

#28. I wouldn't say that there's ever been an Olympic champion that didn't deserve to win an Olympic Gold Medal.

Dorothy Hamill

#29. My goal is to win a gold medal at the Olympic Games, and I'll fight and continue going until I do that.

Troy Dumais

#30. If fretting was an Olympic sport, I'd own the gold medal

Lori Hatcher

#31. 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.

Adelina Sotnikova

#32. 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.

Peter Snell

#33. 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.

Sebastian Coe

#34. I watched the Olympics as a kid. It would be fun to try to win a medal. If I could swap Olympic gold for a US PGA Championship? I'd take the Major every time.

Luke Donald

#35. If you bake a cupcake, the world has one more cupcake. If you become a circus clown, the world has one more squirt of seltzer down someone's pants. But if you win an Olympic gold medal, the world will not have one more Olympic gold medalist. It will just have you instead of someone else.

Steven E. Landsburg

#36. 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.

David Rudisha

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

Michael Phelps

#38. There was a lot of politics going on, and Ireland were denied an Olympic gold medal in 2008.

Tyson Fury

#39. 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.

Jim McKay

#40. 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.

Joe Frazier

#41. If surviving assassination attempts were an Olympic event, I would win the gold medal.

Fidel Castro

#42. Jude kissed like it was an Olympic event and he was trying for a medal. Tait thought he deserved gold.

Pender Mackie

#43. 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.

David Rudisha

#44. The Olympic Gold medal in 1968 was definitely the highest moment of my career. It was a dream come true. I was a 19-year-old boy, and it was just amazing to be standing on top of the podium and hearing the National Anthem in the background.

George Foreman

#45. In the history of each sport, the heroes who win the Olympic gold medal are the ones we remember. Nobody remembers the World Champion 25 years ago, but everyone remembers who the Olympic Champions were, even 100 years ago.

Lavinia Milosovici

#46. I'd accomplished everything I had set out to do - winning the French and Australian Opens, the Olympic gold medal and the Davis Cup. So I said to myself: 'Why don't you try another year and see if you can enjoy your tennis like you did once?' And I've been doing it.

Yevgeny Kafelnikov