A Quote by Dorothy Hamill

Everybody has to deal with tough times. A gold medal doesn't make you immune to that. A skater is used to falling down and getting up again. — © Dorothy Hamill
Everybody has to deal with tough times. A gold medal doesn't make you immune to that. A skater is used to falling down and getting up again.
It took Dan Jansen, the speed skater, four Olympics to win a medal-a gold one at that!-but he never gave up. I won't, either.
I came back to Louisville after the Olympics with my shiny gold medal. Went into a luncheonette where black folks couldn't eat. Thought I'd put them on the spot. I sat down and asked for a meal. The Olympic champion wearing his gold medal. They said, "We don't serve niggers here." I said, "That's okay, I don't eat 'em." But they put me out in the street. So I went down to the river, the Ohio River, and threw my gold medal in it.
I've gotten very used to falling off of things. It's almost like that's my skill! I'm great at falling down and getting back up.
I was told that there are about 900 gold medal winners in American Olympic history. When I thought about the number 900, I wondered how many kids that are influenced by a gold medal ever get to see a gold medal. What I thought was really neat was that I've already had a couple hundred kids touch my gold medal.
Failure is not falling down, it is not getting up again
Success is falling down 7 times but getting up 8!
There is a popular fallacy that falling down is the mark of a poor skater. But the truth is that when one stops falling, he has probably stopped improving.
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.
Making a mistake is falling down; failure is not getting up again.
Over the past decade or so, you have seen the flip side of that as you've seen stock prices have come down a lot relative to gold. Now you are getting a change where people are more comfortable holding gold because in the rear-view mirror it doesn't look so bad for gold. Bonds have not come down as much relative to gold, but I think the bond bubble is going to burst and will be falling for years too. And gold will look that much better.
After I got my gold medal, I thought, 'This isn't just me. It belongs to my team, my friends, my family, the fans, everybody who's impacted my life - this is our gold medal.' So when someone asks to try it on, I'm like, 'Sure, why not?' I might be a little too relaxed about it, but why would I keep it to myself?
Without wishing to sound arrogant, when I was younger, I used to win every single martial arts tournament I ever entered. I used to enter the under 14s and under 16s, win both gold medals in those, and then go in the men's tournament just for experience, and end up getting a silver medal.
Falling down doesn't matter, even if you do it a hundred times. All that matters is that you get up again.
Patience is a part of boxing. After I had missed out on the Olympic gold medal in 1984, a lot of people tried to talk me into turning professional quickly to make money. They told me that the next Olympics in Seoul would be boycotted again, that I was wasting my life, blah blah. But I still had unfinished business. I wanted the gold medal, and I got it in ?88. Only then was I ready to turn professional.
Everyone is getting prepared for this, to win the gold medal. I am among them: I want to win the medal.
We're talking about the Olympics. We're talking about trying to win the gold medal. All of these things can be overwhelming. But regardless of whether I win a gold medal or never compete again, I just have to trust that God has a plan for my life and I'm called to be His representative through the sport and outside of the sport.
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