Ian Thorpe Quotes

I'm sure like everyone else I'm not always the happiest if I don't do a good job in quali or the race or whatever, so I think beating myself up sometimes makes me work harder.

I don't think about medals. I just think of bettering my own time.

Good athletes will be there at good competitions, but I don't think about them; I just think of bettering my own time.

For eight or 10 years, I got wrapped up in chasing records. Everything was a number. Didn't matter what I won, it was a number. Every horse I rode was a number.

I'm so impatient. I can't even stand waiting for a cab, and I'm always early for everything. In training, it means I want to run my personal best every session - but it takes time.

I did an OK job in 'Carrie' but wanted to do better.

I want to win medals for myself.

I take every rep personally. If somebody beats me, I'm going to take that personally.

I am not running after gold medals; I am running after time. And once I get that, gold medals will run after me.

Always, as a player, you are questioned and challenged about the next step. That's what drives the very best: they want to continually win.

I do something to win it or I don't do it at all.

My job is to give 100 per cent so that I can walk away completely satisfied with the race I put together irrespective of placings.

I'm at the point in my career where to be a winner is more important than any individual things.

I'm sick at myself for not winning more. But I am always trying to find ways to make myself a better player. I am not just turning up to make up the numbers.

I am a sore loser. It's not that I'm so competitive with others. But I'm competitive with myself. I like to do better than I did before.

I came second in a 1,500-metre running race at school. I knew I couldn't have come first, so second was my version of first.

In this crazy, crazy world of figure skating, it is easy to focus on a name or a target. But when you are going after someone, it really only holds you back from what you are capable of yourself.

When you've won a gold medal and you're at the top of your sport, everyone's trying to beat you. I find that incredibly motivating.

I'm generally competing with the ideal I have set for myself, and I've found that served me very well.

You need to play with supreme confidence, or else you'll lose again, and then losing becomes a habit.

As I said this year, I didn't try to put any pressure on me by setting high goals or anything, I just want to make sure that every single time I'm out there on the court I do my best, I give 100%, and see where it's going to end up next year.

All sport... is one of the few activities where young people can proceed along traditional avenues, where objectives are clear, where the desire to win is not only permissible, but encouraged.

I can have my goals, and I can have my dreams. My goal is to make the finals and improve my position. I want to run all decent races. I don't want to look back and say I ran a terrible race.

It annoys me a little when people try to be positive when I don't play my best. I play to win. I'm like that. I'm like any other player. I'm never happy.

I'm quite a competitive person, so I do quite like to win.