Medal Quotes

I showed everyone the medal and they said, 'Ooh, I can't believe how heavy it is,' Sometimes they were more interested in the medal than in me. I was like, 'Hey, what about me?'

It surprised me, the feeling I got when I won the Oscar for 'Scent of a Woman.' It was a new feeling. I'd never felt it. I don't see my Oscar much now. But when I first got it, there was a feeling for weeks afterward that I guess is akin to winning a gold medal in the Olympics.

For so long I wanted to win the gold medal.Then I won. I had to figure out what was the new motivation to take myself to that place again.

Olympic medals are the one medal that I don't have; I've won just about every other competition that I've been at.

I was still young when I missed Beijing. I was favourite to win a medal but I knew I had time. My coach advised me to stay at school and finish my exams. Even if I had gone and won the Olympics, I might not have handled the pressure. So I moved on.

I don't know where my first gold medal is.

You want to come home from a tournament with a winner's medal. That's not the fans or the media putting us under pressure, that's the pressure we put ourselves under.

Well my thoughts on American swimming are that our prospects look favorable, but we may not have as strong a showing in the gold medal count as in previous Olympics. But I am not coaching.

I've never felt that I was less of an athlete or not accomplished athletically because I didn't win an Olympic medal. It's definitely something I would have liked to have added to my resume, but at the same time I think I can look back at my athletic career and feel that I was one of the best.

But probably this is helps to win, to win, to gold, more gold medals, and to win most my important medal, heart of people. This is most important for me.

I would be happy with an Olympic bronze. What I don't have is an Olympic medal.

My kids love it. I thought I was the coolest dad in the world when I got to be in a Bond film, but 'Harry Potter', too? Well, I think I qualify for a medal for exceptional parenting or something, don't you?

When you're expected to win and you have the press saying that you are going to win the Olympic gold medal, and you're the only sure thing in the Olympics, it can undermine your confidence.

I think the biggest thing was that I was putting pressure on myself leading up to Beijing. Now I am learning how to take that pressure off and seeing this as an incredible opportunity, but not like, 'I absolutely have to medal.'

Looking back, I'm almost happy I lost that fight. Just imagine if I would have come back to Germany with a victory. I had nothing to do with the Nazis, but they would have given me a medal. After the war I might have been considered a war criminal.

I think as a Canadian hockey player, you go through it in your mind so many times, being able to stand on that blue line and hear your national anthem play and being a gold medal champion, you dream of that. And then to be able to accomplish that and actually win a gold medal and represent your country its an amazing feeling.

Since I started playing at the Olympics in 2000, I have always wanted to do a dress based on Wonder Woman. It should be interesting to wear. And hopefully, it will get me a gold medal.

To anyone who has started out on a long campaign believing that the gold medal was destined for him, the feeling when, all of a sudden, the medal has gone somewhere else is quite indescribable.

To finish off this whole Olympics by finally getting the gold medal, it's the best feeling in the world.

No matter what, like, I couldn't - I could break a world record, get an Olympic gold medal, and my mom would be, like, you could have done better. But you looked pretty. That's what she says all the time.

Through everything I've gone through- and I've been everywhere, at the top of the world, in jail, hung over drunk - I never gave up my dream of winning a gold medal in the Olympics.

If you dream and you allow yourself to dream you can do anything. And that's what this Olympic medal represents.

Winning is great, but being able to finish my last Olympic Games on American soil was very important. Even though I was injured, I didn't let my psyche get the best of me and cause me to doubt myself, so I was willing to pull every muscle in my body in '96 in order to get the job done and I came away with the bronze medal.

Here were these college kids beating the Soviets and going on to the Olympic Gold Medal. To me, that's the greatest upset of all time in any sport that I can think of.

Winning an Olympic gold medal is like nothing else.

I want to win a gold medal in London.

My skating is a very emotional thing that comes from the heart, never doing it for the medal.

Yes, winning the gold medal was undoubtedly the biggest day of my career - mostly because I won the way I had prepared to run it. It was a totally satisfying experience.

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.

Yeah, that's what kind of, we get the idea a little bit yeah, because other people from different countries also try as hard as they can to get a medal or a gold medal in the Olympic Games. And you know, if they can work hard, we can work hard as well.