People who aren't perhaps that into sport are going to be following me and wanting to be part of the Olympics. That definitely does bring added pressure but as an athlete the Olympics are the ultimate competition.
One of my goals is to play the Olympics in 2016. If you're able to represent your country in the Olympics everyone will understand you as a player and not many people do get to go to the Olympics.
I wouldn't be so bold as to say that what we're doing is what sets us apart from everyone, I think that's for everyone else to decide. You're walking the thin line by saying something like that and we don't try and pay attention to what's popular right now. The second you do that you're just going to start sounding like other people and you're going to lose sigh of who you are.
Playing college soccer was going to be the top of my athletic feats. I wasn't going to the Olympics. I was a decent player, but it's because of hard work, not because I was Freddy Adu. I wouldn't have a medal from the Olympics if I wasn't in a chair. I wouldn't have gone to the Olympics and experienced the whole atmosphere.
I remember before the Olympics, I was asked, 'What do you think you're going to do in the Olympics?' and I said, 'I'm hoping I'm going to win a medal, and, if possible, it's going to be a gold one.'
I like getting up when everyone else does and going home when everyone else does.
People really criticize professional athletes going into the Olympics. People don't like change. A bunch of people don't like the Olympics now because we've added skateboarding... We're modernizing the sport.
The Olympics are coming... and it's a big problem in American politics, because the problem with holding the Olympics this fall is that we're all going to be focused on the Olympics, and it makes that window of opportunity for Gore to win the election that much smaller.
I think that everyone who does music, and everyone who does art, or everyone who decides at a young age that they're gonna do that, is someone who feels like an outsider. The world is not really set up for that.
The Olympics were something that was put in my path. I knew I was capable, I worked so hard for it, so I guess it's like, Why wouldn't I want to go to the Olympics? But it was never something that I was really, really dead set on. It was just what my coaches and everyone else forced upon me.
I remember watching the '96 Olympics. For some reason, I was like 'Oh yeah, I'm going to go to the Olympics some day.' At that time as a kid, I did not know for what sport or really anything.
I am the Olympic Ambassador. I always promote Olympics. I just want to say, Olympics is Olympics. [You] cannot mix with politics. Olympics for me is love, peace, [being] united.
I'm going into my first Olympics, whereas people I'm racing against are going into their third and fourth and probably last Olympics. So there's more pressure on them to perform. I've still got a whole future ahead of me. I am not even the Olympic champ.
I feel like I have this different opportunity that not a lot of athletes may have. It's the fact that I'm Korean-American, and the Olympics are going to be in Korea, but I'm also riding for the States. I feel like I got really lucky that it got all pieced together - my first Olympics, being in Korea where most of my family is.
I never planned to be at the height of my career when I was 30 years old and going to my fourth Olympics. I watched the 1998 Olympics when I was 14 years old. That's what I wanted to do with my life. I thought I might have a shot at three Olympics max. This is way beyond the parameters of what I set out to do.
You couldn’t pay me a billion dollars to take marijuana. I don’t really like coke anymore. I’m scared of ecstasy. The one drug I'd like to try one day is Ayahuasca, which should be mandatory for everybody. It’s apparently this crazy tea that gives you these intense hallucinations. Everyone who takes it sees a wise old black man who takes you on a wild journey. I’m not going to name names, but everyone who takes it sees the same black guy. I'm not kidding you. Everyone!