Top 1200 Olympic Athlete Quotes & Sayings - Page 4

The IOC are the guardians of the Olympic ideal.

Madonna is an athlete; she has to be treated like a professional athlete. She doesn't work out for six hours a day, though, like some of the press says. She never works out for more than two hours a day, and then only when she has the time.

When I found Jesus Christ, I learned to be a better athlete. I didn't have to go out there and knock them out in the first round. I've learned to be patient, skillful in the ring. At the same time, I wanted to prove to other boxers that you can take off this killer instinct stuff, you can be a great athlete, a great boxer, and love your brother.

There might have been a thousand people who had a better athletic feat than what I did. So for me, just the fact that they gave Canadian Athlete of the Year - and also, I was voted third in the Male Athlete of the Year - the fact that some people did consider what I did an athletic feat, that really makes me feel good.

Being vegan doesn't make you a stronger, better athlete. But it allows you to make yourself a stronger, better athlete.

One minute you're a developing athlete trying to get to the top, then the next minute you do well and win a medal somewhere, and then it's all foisted on you. You never know when it's going to happen. You don't think about the media side of things when you're a young athlete trying to do well.

I can't believe that I'm on the Olympic team.

I've never had to make weight for any sport before. Because, get this, I was not allowed to do any sports in school because I was a professional athlete. I was doing wrestling at the age of 15, so the school districts and the board of directors said that because I was a professional athlete that I couldn't do anything.

My only aim is to win an Olympic medal.

Tennis is not really a traditional Olympic sport.

The Olympic Snatch is gymnastics with a bar

I would say, look, any fighter that's out there or any star athlete - not star athlete in the sense of a baseball player, but like a Brock Lesnar - that really wants to fight, we're going to have a conversation with them. Because if they can move the needle, we're going to want them on Spike TV.

I just don't feel the Olympic spirit.

I'm excited to be a part of the Olympic movement again.

Any Olympic sport is great to watch.

Strength is an excellent example of a physical characteristic that drives improvement in other athletic parameters. More strength means more power, more endurance, better coordination, and better everything else. This is why, all other things being equal, the stronger athlete is the better athlete.

I want the full Olympic experience.

I went to five Olympic Games and my favorite is Sydney.

We can't all win Olympic medals. Even I never won one.

Sometimes we want to have growth without challenges and to develop strength without any struggle. But growth cannot come by taking the easy way. We clearly understand that an athlete who resists rigorous training will never become a world-class athlete. We must be careful that we don't resent the very things that help us put on the divine nature.

I got an Olympic medal.

I'm proud to be part of any Olympic team.

People in the States used to think that if girls were good at sports their sexuality would be affected. Being feminine meant being a cheerleader, not being an athlete. The image of women is changing now. You don't have to be pretty for people to come and see you play. At the same time, if you're a good athlete, it doesn't mean you're not a woman.

If you look at the Olympic Games as a whole, if we would say we didn't want to interject politics into the games, then why are we using nation's flags? Why don't we use one Olympic flag to encompass all the Olympians, as opposed to being separatists in terms of China versus Russia or Russia versus the United States? Why don't we just say man versus man?

There's three things that as a professional athlete you want. You want to get to the big leagues, and I accomplished that. Winning a World Series ring, I got that. And then getting to the Hall of Fame. That's everybody's dream. Every athlete, they want to be up there in the Hall of Fame, mentioned with the greatest players to ever play this game.

When I first went to LA. Honestly, it was different for me. The whole thing, the student-athlete part, you know, where the student came before the athlete. That was totally new to me. I had down online school since fifth grade so I never really had sat in a classroom and taken a note.

When Olympic decathlon gold medalist Bruce Jenner asked a roomful of Olympic hopefuls if they had a list of written goals, every one raised their hands. When he asked how many of them had that list with them right that moment, only one person raised their hand. That person was Dan O'Brien. And it was Dan O'Brien who went on to win the gold medal in the decathlon at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. Don't underestimate the power of setting goals and constantly reviewing them.

He who is only an athlete is too crude, too vulgar, too much a savage. He who is a scholar only is too soft, to effeminate. The ideal citizen is the scholar athlete, the man of thought and the man of action.

You don't have to look like an Under Armour mannequin to be an athlete. A lot of people probably think I'm not athletic or don't even try to work out or whatever, but I do. Just because you're big doesn't mean you can't be an athlete. And just because you work out doesn't mean you're going to have a 12-pack.

Getting to the Olympic Games was my gold medal.

My older sister Celia is an actress as well. She's a little bit older than me. So, in my formative years, she was always performing, and we would always go see her do things. And so, that just made me want to be... like her. Maybe if she was an Olympic swimmer, I would probably be an Olympic swimmer by now as well!

Well, my dad was into music, but he wasn't into me being into music. In my house when I was a kid, when I was real young, my dad wanted us all to play sports, and we were jock-like. We had a lot of money. And my brother was sort of the light of our family, and he was a good athlete. And I wasn't a very good athlete, but I tried to be. And then when I was 15 my dad went bankrupt, and we moved to Houston. And I went with him, but then I went back to Portland.

Individual and team discipline ultimately come down to practicing a small set of principles over a long period of time. Success is not a matter of mastering subtle, sophisticated theory, but rather embracing common sense with uncommon levels of discipline and persistence. Said in yet another way, discipline is to an athlete what scales are to a musician. Mastering the scales is what allows the musician to perform music. Mastering the skills of self discipline is what enables a person to become an accomplished elite athlete.

It is said that courage isn’t the absence of fear but the fortitude to confront fear. And as long as homophobia continues to be an accepted element of the locker room culture and homophobic language a coach’s motivational tool, we can never dismiss the courage it takes for an athlete-on any level-to be openly gay. Bobby Blair may not be a household name, but his journey-from frightened collegiate athlete to empowered advocate-is one that has an important lesson for anyone who believes in the unifying power of sports.

Sport is cultural. What the star athlete does helps to define the culture. What the star athlete does on a Canadian team, especially if he or she is Canadian, helps define Canadian-ness.

If I'd gone into taekwondo, I'd probably have won several Olympic medals.

You don't BOO an Olympic Gold Medalist!

I was 80-1 to win Olympic gold.

The Olympic Games belong to the athletes and not to the politicians.

I've always dreamed of an Olympic medal.

I'm in awe of any Olympic champion, for sure.

The pressure of the Olympic Games is real overwhelming.

I wanted to be an Olympic swimmer when I was growing up.

You're not going to tell me that you're going to find a person who's not a very good athlete and he or she is going to be a great player. But anyone can play the game. That's the nice thing about the game. You don't really have to be a world-class athlete to play the sport [golf] and have fun because of handicap systems.

Everyone is an athlete. You want to go hiking, you want to go biking, you want to go jogging or for a walk? You're automatically an athlete.

I have often been asked whether I am a women or an athlete. The question is absurd. Men are not asked that. I am an athlete. I am a women.

The whole world knows that American TV companies have monopolized Olympic broadcasts and in order to please the fans in their country they do everything they can to keep American viewers interested in what is going on at the hockey rink in Sochi. According to their logic, Americans should always win, no matter what. It was absolutely obvious that [Fyodor] Tyutin's goal yesterday should have been allowed. This was clear to the whole world except the American referee, American TV and those officials with American passports who rule international hockey, grossly neglecting all Olympic principles.

I am very athletic, actually, and I'm good at most sports. But I was never a successful athlete, because I have a lot of trouble with authority. To be a good athlete, you have to have sort of a military attitude. You have to enjoy being coached, and that was not something I ever liked. But more than that, I don't like practice, and coaches hate anybody that doesn't like practice. If you saw me throwing a football, you'd say, "Wow, he knows how to throw a football." But put me on a field, I'm not gonna stand out.

My Olympic voyage has continued because it is so rewarding.

Serena Williams is the greatest tennis player of all time, the greatest female athlete of all time, the greatest athlete of all time.

I have always wanted to compete in the Olympic Games.

Winning the Olympic gold was amazing.

I suppose the "dilemma" might come up if I see a black athlete from the U.S. squaring off against a white Canadian athlete. Who do I want to identify with? I certainly will not and cannot say that race determines how I see competition. I'm certainly aware of how race plays into the way others see and portray competition some times, but I don't have to invest in it that way myself. Unless it's boxing.

I gather you yellow-skinned men, despite your triumphs in sewage, drinking water, and Olympic gold medals, still don't have democracy. Some politician on the radio was saying that that's why we Indian are going to beat you: we may not have sewage, drinking water, and Olympic gold medals, but we do have democracy. If I were making a country, I'd get the sewage pipes first, then the democracy, then I'd go about giving pamphlets and statues of Gandhi to other people, but what do I know? I am just a murderer!

Hopefully before I'm done, I can be on an Olympic team.

The Olympic Charter says winter sports must be played on snow or ice, so the Chess Federation says they'll play with ice pieces. The Olympic charter also says sports must be sports.

One of the unique aspects of rowing is that novices strive to perfect the same motions as Olympic contenders. Few other sports can make this claim. In figure skating, for instance, the novice practices only simple moves. After years of training, the skater then proceeds to the jumps and spins that make up an elite skater's program. But the novice rower, from day one, strives to duplicate a motion that he'll still be doing on the day of the Olympic finals.

It's harder to be a dad than an Olympic champion.

Everybody wants that spot: everybody wants to beat Nicola Adams. Everybody wants to be the Olympic champion; everybody wants to beat the Olympic champion. It's made me train that much harder and stay that much more focused. I guess, in a way, I've got them to thank for keeping me motivated and focused on the job I need to do.

I don't have all this money people think Olympic athletes have.