Sports Champion Sayings

#1. Hard days are the best because that's when champions are made.

Gabby Douglas

#2. The best and fastest way to learn a sport is to watch and imitate a champion.

Jean-Claude Killy

#3. Boxing is a dying sport, really. Years ago, the world heavyweight champion could be said to have reached the highest pinnacle of sport. Even in this country, boxers were heroes. Think of Henry Cooper and Frank Bruno.

Tyson Fury

#4. A champion shows who he is by what he does when he's tested. When a person gets up and says 'I can still do it', he's a champion.

Evander Holyfield

#5. Sport has long occupied a special place in the hearts of Australians, and today the nation welcomes a new champion to the pantheon. Cadel Evans, cyclist extraordinaire.

Paul Ramadge

#6. Champions are champions not because they do anything extraordinary but because they do the ordinary things better than anyone else.

Chuck Noll

#7. Single-mindedness. I hate to say it because I don't think it's the best thing for developing a person, but the single-mindedness - just concentrating in the one area - that's what it takes to be a champion.

Chris Evert

#8. Throughout the history of the sport, the heavyweight champion has been ... a reason to talk about boxing at the water cooler.

Teddy Atlas

#9. Never underestimate the heart of a champion!

Doc Rivers

#10. Ever since I was a child I always wanted to be WWE Champion. I've been in love with sports-entertainment for my entire life, and I always wanted to do that.

David Otunga

#11. I wasn't born a world champion. I just worked really hard to become one.

Layne Beachley

#12. Essentially, I am a dreamer. I've dreamed all my life. When I started, I dreamed I'd be Champion because it is a sport that is all about the people who win the most, and I have a fear of not winning.

Tony McCoy

#13. There never was a champion who to himself was a good loser. There's a vast difference between a good sport and a good loser.

Earl Blaik

#14. The newspapers loved pinup pictures of pretty young swimmers, and as a national champion, I got more than my share of space in the sports pages.

Esther Williams

#15. If you are going to be a champion, you must be willing to pay a greater price.

Bud Wilkinson

#16. I'm going to give the people their money's worth ... true sports entertainment for their dollar. I'm the undefeated IBF Light Heavyweight World Champion making my fifth title defense. The crowd will be with me because everybody wants to be with a winner.

Tavoris Cloud

#17. As an Olympic champion gymnast, I have always stayed involved in my sport.

Nadia Comaneci

#18. When everything seems worse, impossible to achieve, thinking about giving up, quitting? Remember why started first? Trust yourself, tap yourself and say if you cannot make it, no one is going to. Look back, the whole team believes in you, go for it and be a CHAMPION.

Vivek Thangaswamy

#19. 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

#20. In so-called communist Romania, chess was held in high esteem, even if our champions were weaker than the Soviets. This game, this "sport of the mind," was at the time a better way to establish your reputation than literature.

Dumitru Tepeneag

#21. In sports, you simply aren't considered a real champion until you have defended your title successfully. Winning it once can be a fluke; winning it twice proves you are the best.

Althea Gibson

#22. Sports is about balls and about heart and you don't find too many champions in any sport in the world without heart or balls. He might have them, but against Nadal they shrink to a very small size and it's not once, it's every time.

Mats Wilander

#23. I wouldn't have been what you'd call a champion if I had accepted failure when it first came, if I had looked at it and said, 'Well, that's it.'

Shirley Strickland

#24. 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

#25. It's not so much what you accomplish in life that really matters, but what you overcome that proves who you are, what you are, and whether you are a champion.

Johnny Miller

#26. I didn't aspire to be a good sport; 'champion' was good enough for me.

Fred Perry

#27. On Rafael Nadal: Every point he plays is like match point. That's why he's the champion right now.

Bjorn Borg

#28. Greatness, whether athletic or otherwise, doesn't come from those content on just being but from those who seek being the difference.

Kirk Mango

#29. You can win all the tournaments you want, but the majors are what you're remembered for. It's how you're measured as a champion in our sport. The majors are where it's at.

Tiger Woods

#30. Champions take responsibility. When the ball is coming over the net, you can be sure I want the ball.

Billie Jean King

#31. My father was an army champion boxer ... in the British army. And so he loved boxing and talked it up as a sport. But then when my brother and I were beating the crap out of each other, he was always trying to tone it down. But I am a fan of boxing.

Hugh Jackman

#32. My greatest influences in my sport have been two former number one English lady darts players, Deta Hedman and Mandy Solomons. Deta helped me at international events and both helped me to cope with the big occasion which gave me the confidence I needed to become a champion.

Trina Gulliver

#33. In the 1950s, when I was hanging around Sullivan's Gym and the Gramercy Gym, there were fixed fights. Mob guys like Frankie Carbo and Blinky Palermo had taken over the sport; one lightweight champion loaned his title to others at least twice; the welterweight division was a slag heap.

Pete Hamill

#34. Manny has swung with many men, but many men never seen Manny's blissful swing.

Anthony Liccione

#35. To win takes a complete commitment of mind and body. When you can't make that commitment, they don't call you a champion anymore.

Rocky Marciano

#36. The reason sport is attractive to many of the general public is that it's filled with reversals. What you think may happen doesn't happen. A champion is beaten, an unknown becomes a champion.

Roger Bannister

#37. Boxing is a sport, but it's also entertainment. I wanted to transcend the sport and be considered just not as a fighter, or a champion, but someone very special.

Sugar Ray Leonard

#38. I'm not afraid of anyone, but sometimes I'm afraid of myself. The mental part is very important.

Justine Henin

#39. I was an All-American in wrestling in high school, was National Champion in Chinese kickboxing in 1999 and have spent a lot of time around professional athletes, which includes my eight-plus years as CEO of a sports nutrition company.

Timothy Ferriss

#40. As a child I was very involved with sports and I knew at age 9 that I wanted to be an Olympic champion.

Marion Jones

#41. A champion always prepares to win.

D.C. Gonzalez