Athlete quotes
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"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."
"My daughter's mother and I are no longer dating, and the people I'm most likely to date are those around me, who are athletes."
"The guy is the greatest male athletes of all time."
"I have started to realize that I am really just a world athlete and a world entertainer -- I am a world-known person, I am a global icon."
"The way in which sports focuses more on the peccadilloes, lives and putative personalities of athletes and less on the finer points of playing games, I've become less interested in it. I don't want to write sports profiles."
"I don't want to be a celebrity athlete. When you are, there's this pressure on you. It's like you have this halo over your head and have to walk on eggshells. That's not for me. All that glamour builds up a false sense of ego. It's not needed. I'm already happy with who I am. My job is just to get on the podium."
"I never dreamed of being a flagbearer. Every athlete has a wish to get to the Olympic Games. I had that wish, but to carry the flag of your country is doubly thrilling."
"I think that to be a competitive athlete, you have to be goal-oriented."
"As an athlete, you figure you work your whole life to have what you have, and to be able to show the world what you have and how proud you are of it, that's always fun."
"I can look back at it now as definitely like an initiation into adulthood. Almost overnight in the NFL, I was put on a pedestal and I was supposed to be this icon or this image of what a professional athlete was supposed to be. I felt like I just got stuck trying to be someone else and I forgot who I actually was."
"All athletes, without fail, are potentially great and good. A great athlete is a little man tirelessly inspired."
"I'm probably the least flexible athlete you'll find. When it comes to yoga, I can't get in the positions and I can't hold them. You have to be pretty flexible to do it. Once you get certain positions, you have to have the core strength to hold those positions. It's a pretty good workout."
"You will be competing against athletes from many nations. But, most important, you are competing against yourself. All we expect is for you to do your very best, to push yourself just one second faster, one notch higher, one inch further."
"As a passionate sports fan, as well as an athlete, I am excited to be a part of CBS Sports Network's historic sports-focused program hosted entirely by women, especially at a time when the influence of women in sports has evolved to where it is today."
"Athletes have to be confident and I am thinking like that."
"In the marathon a crazy athlete can just keep pushing from the beginning, at a championship you don't need a time just to win the race."
"The moment an athlete doesn't train, things start to get a bit rusty."
"The young athlete who aspires to greatness, generally speaking, learns a number of things from several different coaches. The first one taught him the fundamentals; the second one instilled discipline in him and taught him more of the techniques that must be mastered to excel."
"There were always a couple of loonies who caused all the trouble."
"In a country that never wins anything: in Canada, if one of our athletes so much as makes the final in a World Championship, we declare a national holiday."
