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People think the gold medal is yours and they say you're going to win - but they have no idea how hard it is. People aren't doing it negatively - they're mostly lovely and they really do want you to win - but they don't understand the difficulty and intensity of competition.
Oct 2, 2025
My goal is one Olympic gold medal. Not many people in this world can say, 'I'm an Olympic gold medalist.'
London 2012 is all about winning a medal. Not just any medal, the gold medal.
It took putting one foot in front of the other every single day to get through it to the point where I made it back on the team and won a gold medal in 2008.
To finish off this whole Olympics by finally getting the gold medal, it's the best feeling in the world.
To have this gold medal around my neck is an indescribable feeling. I'm the happiest person right now.
Coming in as a veteran, I'd like to finish with a gold medal.
I made a gym, it's the best gym in Nicaragua, I have kids that this year July 6th through the 11th will be fighting and then will go on to the Central American Games and I'm sure at least one will win a gold medal.
I never have prayed to win a gold medal at Olympics and never will. The Lord is my Shepard and I shall not want. May His will be done.
You don't win an Olympic gold medal with a few weeks of intensive training.
Getting the degree meant more to me than an NCAA title, being named All-American or winning an Olympic gold medal.
I want to win a gold medal in London.
Winning an Olympic gold medal is like nothing else.
Malaysia didn't end up winning any gold medals at the Rio Olympics, but had set new records and brought the nation closer, so keep going.
I'd rather get a nice warmup suit. That's something I can use. Gold medals just sit there. When I get old, maybe I could sell them if I need the money.
I had four gold medals, but you can't eat four gold medals.
When you see athletes like me win gold medals, you only see the finished product, you dont see the real effort that the likes of Ron have put into making that product. Without the Ron Roddans of this world, you would have no sport.
The only way to escape fear is to trample it beneath your feet.
It really means a lot that I won the gold medal - but I woke up the next morning expecting to feel different. I felt the same.
Eight gold medals? If I wanted I could make a movie about me winning nine gold medals. Now that's real power.
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.
When I took the job as the manager of the Olympic team, I didn't take it because I was a Dodger. I did it because I was an American, and I wanted to bring that gold medal where it belongs in baseball, the United States. And that's exactly what our team did.
I have learned that there is no failure in running, or in life, as long as you keep moving. It's not about speed. And gold medals. It's about refusing to be stopped. you might find that one particular direction proves difficult, but there are many directions on a compass. Infinite, in fact. As long as you keep searching, you'll find your winning way.
Now I had won the gold medal. But it didn't mean anything, because I didn't have the right color skin.
We had two goals...One was to cherish every moment together, cherish the journey because the journey allows you to learn and grow. The other was to win a gold medal.
I wouldn't say that there's ever been an Olympic champion that didn't deserve to win an Olympic Gold Medal.
Congratulations to Mexico. They upset Brazil to win a gold medal in men's soccer. And after the Olympics ended, the Mexican soccer team, of course, returned home to their houses here in Los Angeles.
We don't have a World Series or a Super Bowl, so to be able to come home with a gold medal is amazing. I want to do it again in four more years.
My stepdad is Bruce Jenner, the Olympian. The first time he came over was like a blind date, and we had show and tell. He took out the gold medal for me and my sisters, and we were like, 'So? Who the hell are you?'
My advice is that going to the Olympics and winning a gold medal are great goals, but the real goal should be to be the best that you can be.
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
When I was going through my transition of being famous, I tried to ask God, why was I here? What was my purpose? Surely, it wasn't just to win three gold medals. There has to be more to this life than that.
The award of a pure gold medal for poetry would flatter the recipient unduly: no poem ever attains such carat purity.
Curling is not a sport. I called my grandmother and told her she could win a gold medal because they have dusting in the Olympics now.
Each of us has a fire in our hearts for something. It's our goal in life to find it and keep it.
Nothing is impossible. With so many people saying it couldn't be done, all it takes is an imagination.
Gold medals aren't really made of gold. They're made of sweat, determination, and a hard-to-find alloy called guts.
I am building a fire, and everyday I train, I add more fuel. At just the right moment, I light the match.
If you bound the arms and legs of gold-medal swimmer Michael Phelps, weighed him down with chains, threw him in a pool and he sank, you wouldn't call it a 'failure of swimming.' So, when markets have been weighted down by inept and excessive regulation, why call this a 'failure of capitalism'?
I am completely honest and truthful when I say I don’t want a gold for myself. I want a gold for the team. You go up there and do it as a collective group and it’s so much more satisfying, I mean you look around and you see the faces and just wow, this was a team effort and we did this together. It’s incredible and that’s my dream. I wanna win a gold medal and see the flag go up, hear the national anthem and just know that I did it with my brothers standing next to me.
I looked up and saw my flag. But I didn't hear my anthem. The quotation above from 6 ft 4 inch, 286 pound Silver Medalist Ghaffari (who broke down in tears on the medal stand) summed up his disappointment after an overtime loss to Aleksandr Karelin of Russia. A win would have given Ghaffari not only the Olympic gold medal but also his first victory over Karelin, something of which he has literally dreamed about after 20 meets between the two. Karelin dominates international competition in the sport.
No matter what. Wherever your mind wanders, it seems to turn up at the same Field of Dreams. It's the vision you wake up with in the morning, and it's the last thing you picture before you fall asleep. Everytime you think of it, the idea in your head seems to get more vivid, filled in with more detail: You not only want to win a gold medal at the Olympics, you not only can see yourself standing there on the podium, but you can also feel the goose bumps as your national anthem is played; the tears are in your eyes. (That's how real a dream can be and should be)
The battles that count aren't the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself - the invisible, inevitable battles inside all of us - that's where it's at.
Never underestimate the power of dreams and the influence of the human spirit. We are all the same in this notion: The potential for greatness lives within each of us.
The potential for greatness lives within us all.
People say that it was degrading for an Olympic champion to run against a horse, but what was I supposed to do? I had four gold medals, but you can't eat four gold medals. There was no television, no big advertising, no endorsements then. Not for a black man, anyway.
If you think you can - you can!
Although it was a great accomplishment to win a gold medal, as soon as they put it on you, that's it; your career is over.
I'd accomplished everything I had set out to do - winning the French and Australian Opens, the Olympic gold medal and the Davis Cup. So I said to myself: 'Why don't you try another year and see if you can enjoy your tennis like you did once?' And I've been doing it.
He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.