It's the same when you listen to any kind of successful athlete. My older brother has a useful name for them - he calls them lottery ticket careers. I are engaged in what he calls these lottery ticket careers. On the one hand it's very, very unlikely that you're ever going to hit it. On the other hand if you do hit it, you really hit it. You have to be engaged with it, though, maybe you're entire life. And if you never actually do hit it? You kind of jovially lie yourself along the way and recognize that it may produce things outside the hitting it kinds of goods, I suppose.
It's extremely hard for athletes to accept what's happened to them sometimes. It's hard to be beaten by a small margin, and I've spoken with athletes who, for years afterward, have been tormented by the knowledge that, had they done something ever so slightly different, they could have been one-ten-thousandth of a second quicker.
I think that the relationship between two top-level athletes who are rivals is one of the most fascinating human relationships to explore. It's always one atom away from being a tragedy.
You can't worry about what people say, but... People always harp on athletes being selfish individualists.
I had some very fit people. I worked with a lot of athletes helping them, especially combat athletes, MMA fighters,[Dennis] Bermudez, [Chris] Weidman, and guys on the lower levels - boxers and MMA fighters.
Tony [Walters] was one of the first international world-class athlete I had ever dealt with and I was lucky enough to have him as a coach and he taught me a lot about the mental aspects of training and competition.
Beside the brand-ambassador elements of the modern racing driver, the evolution of the athlete has mandated that as drivers, we are very committed to fitness.
Jim Thorpe is someone I've always loved. He was an Olympic athlete, you know, and a football player from back in the day. I'd love to play him. And then there's a guy called Iceman who was a top hit man for the mob. I would love to play him. Actually, it's sort of in the works, so I hope it goes through.
I'm just kind of really interested in athletes as artists of a pretty serious variety and people who devote themselves to what they do in a really incredible way.
An athlete learns how to hold her breath, but that doesn't work in singing. You have to learn to relax.
It's that athlete's obsessiveness - the need to prove yourself and work harder than anybody else. I think it's what helped me do well in the theater.
Nowadays a gold medal is a $1 million contract. Our athletes are our heroes.
I decided that I was going to go to the Olympics to see if I had made the right decision to retire because I knew that if I'd made the mistake of retiring I would know during and after those Games in Athens.
The Athens Olympics will be meaningful even though I cannot participate as an athlete, since I can participate in the flame relay all over the world.
So many people get caught up in being a pro athlete and think they are better. I don't feel like I've ever changed or acted any differently because of the situation I'm in or that status I have.
I personally believe that professional athletes should give back to their communities in any way possible. We are in a position to make a difference.
I'm not Carl Lewis the athlete any more. I'm growing into a new person with new interests and new goals.
I found the emotion that as an athlete you block out, and it really helped me to understand myself as a person. I'm a really emotional person and it helped make me a better person.
I tell you, it was kind of two-fold. I fortunately had a lot of support. My coach was amazing - he told me to focus on being prepared and that is what I did. Every athlete is nervous - any athlete who tells you they're not nervous isn't telling you the truth. I was as prepared as I could be.
At the end of the day, if you're a professional athlete in track and field you are the CEO of your company.
My background is that of a competitive athlete and a fighter, and I'm bringing something totally different to 'The Biggest Loser' that wasn't there before.
It's not just the physical aspect of boxing, it's the whole fighter mentality that has been ingrained in me through the years as a competitive athlete. One of the hardest things you'll ever do is to box - to get into the ring and to face off with somebody whose whole goal is to knock you out, to hurt you, and to be able to fight back.
You can fight based on a strong mind, based on developing your muscles and reflexes, training your motor functions and going back again. Having a strong enough mind to actually put them into action. This is not actually terribly different from what an Olympic athlete does - and essentially describes the process of becoming an Olympic athlete.
Little did I know that there's nothing more competitive in the world than a professional ballroom dancer. They are as competitive as Olympic athletes.
I'm definitely an athlete who has a hobby playing music. I've been doing baseball since I was 5 or 6. It's the only thing I've ever thought of really my whole life, and music came into my life actually in '99, playing and singing. It's definitely been the only hobby I've had that I can't put down.
