Most other competitions are individual achievements, but the Olympic Games is something that belongs to everybody.
I was more interested in skating and the girls and traveling than I was in calculus.
I just try to touch people's hearts in a way through skating, so they're not just witnessing a performance, they're feeling a performance and they're a part of it.
Without strength and courage it's really hard to perform at the highest levels of international figure skating, because you're alone on the ice and you only have seven minutes over two nights to prove yourself.
I started skating and I kind of liked it because I could run circles around the guys that wouldn't pick me to play baseball.
What was really funny is that as I got older all those guys who called me a sissy in junior high school wanted me to be their best friend because they wanted to meet all the girls that I knew in figure skating.
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.
Male figure skating is different than female figure skating; we're not America's sweetheart.
That's what makes the Ryder Cup in golf so much better than the Masters or the U.S. Open. To be a part of something that is not about personal achievement, but about representing everyone and sharing it with the whole country, it's wonderful.
So as an amateur Olympic competitor I loved criticism, because it made me better. But now as a professional I don't really know how to channel it or where to take it, so I don't take it quite as well.
And so figure skating was a great vehicle for me to kind of be competitive at something, without having to be big.
I didn't want to be the sissy figure skater, you know.
Refined indifference is a sports psychology precept: train like there's no tomorrow and then accept whatever happens. Once you step on the field realize that whatever is meant to be is meant to be.
From the fall of October, 1980 to March, 1984 I never lost a competition.
