Top 100 Quotes & Sayings by P. T. Usha - Page 2

I have heard some people saying that I continue to run for the sake of money. What is money to me? I have enough of it.

In the early 1980s, top athletes hardly got the kind of exposure needed.

I saw 'Bhaag Milkha Bhaag' and I loved it.

I feel running is far easier than coaching.

I was the first athlete in the country to have a personal coach.

Cricket has come to take centerstage among all sports in the country today and it is therefore no surprise that the organizers are romping in added attractions, to cheer the crowd, in a bid to pay value for their money.

Medal in Olympics is not small thing. There is a need to develop sportsperson especially athletes from the grass-root level to win medal in Olympics. The athletes should start to develop from the school level.

Without Nambiar sir's guidance I would not have been able to achieve what I did for the country.

There is no dearth of talent in India, but there is no encouragement and facilities to train.

After winning a medal, many athletes give up and go into oblivion, the reason being lack of encouragement.

My dad did not want me to take up sport initially, he was worried that I would get injured.

If I missed bronze by whisker, it was due to lack of experience.

I was good in science in school and parents thought I would become a school teacher like my mother.

I had to travel long distances to train on a synthetic track, which added to residual fatigue.

I was shocked after hearing the news of Milkha Singh's death. He was a great athlete... an inspiring personality.

Athletes will get result with training and proper exposure. Money should be spent on them for exposure. We should send them for competitions in Europe.

It is great to see our young athletes get an opportunity to run on excellent tracks at the Medical College Stadium. And I am happy to see spectators coming in large numbers to cheer our young champions. That is something you would not see in many parts of Kerala.

May be someday a movie will be made on my life.

The 1982 Asian Games champion M.D. Valsamma's coach gave a statement in the media that if Valsamma had some 15 days training on a synthetic track, she would beat me. I was very interested in the challenge. I kept that paper cutting under my bed and used to read it often.

Athletes like Milkha Singh, Sriram Singh, T.C. Yohannan and I set our records at international meets under stringent conditions, against the stiffest competition.

While I was studying in class V, my school's PT teacher happened to make me run alongside the current sub-district champion from our school. I came first - that was when my ability was identified.

An Olympic medal in athletics is still a dream for India. Milkha Singh is the torchbearer for young athletes to achieve that goal.

I brought hurdles, all ten of them, to the beach and had my hurdling sessions very close to the water. Those days, I trained on the beach for nearly three months every season with coach Nambiar. I used to run into the water, almost chasing the receding waves, and that was how I built up strength.

Records are meant to be broken and they should be broken, but fairly.

It was those medals I won at Kottayam that gave me the confidence to dream it big in athletics.

If you have speed you need not be only in athletics, you can choose any other discipline.

I wanted to give everything that I lacked in my childhood to young children of my village. I had only talent but no scientific training, facilities or infrastructure to help.

Compared to our era, facilities in athletics have increased manifold. But contemporary athletes are not mentally tough. The new generation wants everything easily, but it is not possible in athletics.

In the sports hostel, I would not eat the boiled egg and would store it away in my bag. But eventually, Nambiar sir found out and gave me a yelling. There were so many eggs in my bag and they started smelling.

At the Usha School of Athletics, our sole aim is to earn Olympic gold medals for India.

All I can say is that we cannot shut our eyes to Western culture if that is not going to suit ours.

I was a vegetarian who would eat fish.

Udaya Laxmi is not the only athlete who has been asked by the administrators to go after my records; they now want to take away the only record I hold, in the 400m hurdles that I set at the final of the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984.

I come from a middle-class family in Kozhikode, Kerala.

Although I am training 12-year-olds at my School of Athletics, they will hit the track only after three or four years.

Only God can save Indian sports.

Spare a thought for people like me who sweated it out for our moment of glory and the joy we brought for the country. I had earned my records the hard way.

Unlike cricket or tennis, athletics receive no money and so it remains a poor man's sport.

I have knocked at almost every door, from government offices to private companies, pleading for money and facilities to start my athletics school. It has been a tough mission. But I am thrilled that it is now a reality.

There should ideally be a synthetic track in every district. Athletics is tough, and needs more support.