Yuna Quotes

I have learned from the first Olympics, of course. When I went to my first Olympic Games, I experienced all of the pressure and was able to win the gold medal. I try not to feel the pressure, and I try not to be nervous when I am on the ice and when I compete.

If one day I go to a game and I don't feel I can win, maybe I don't go.

Learning how to compete is one of the most important things that an athlete can do. You can train as well as you possibly can and go compete and completely choke.

You are anxious before every game because you had to win it. If you didn't you went down the ladder. I felt proud of the way we beat some teams in tough games.

Last year I was the favorite going into the world champs in Beijing, but I felt like I had to do something phenomenal in order to win. Instead of just having fun and competing, it became "I want to win so bad." But the person who wants it the most doesn't win. It's the person who executes. I still look back on that 200-meter race and say what the hell happened? I wasn't hurt, I wasn't sick, the conditions were perfect, and I ran like total crap.

The only difference between a winning team and a losing team is one game. The winning team can win two out of three games...the losing team can only win one out of three.

The problem with being a Tour de France winner is you always have that feeling of disappointment if you don't win again. That's the curse of the Tour de France.

I was still young when I missed Beijing. I was favourite to win a medal but I knew I had time. My coach advised me to stay at school and finish my exams. Even if I had gone and won the Olympics, I might not have handled the pressure. So I moved on.

I think there's going to be pressure on all the British athletes. It's a home Olympics at the end of the day. I like adrenaline, that's something I feed off. I'm just going to go out there and do my best.

Yes, I'm the same grumpy Gautam who smiles very less on the field. I go very quiet before going into the match. I guess it works for me, though my team-mates keep telling me it is just a game.

I had already been into my professional career for six years and had not won an individual gold medal at the Olympics. There was a tremendous amount of pressure going into 1996 to get it done.

Everybody gets all worked up about trash talk but it is what it is - it's talk... You ask any player, honestly, if trash talk's gonna affect how hard they play, because if a little trash talk affects how hard they can play, it just lets us know that they were holding back or weren't playing harder or as hard as they could.

You get yourself prepared for a big game, you get yourself up for it. Then afterwards you don't sleep or eat properly.

I've really learned over the years how to control my adrenaline and let it all out when they shoot the gun versus letting the crowd and the lights and the camera get to me.

Nobody cares about the bronze or silver medals.

I think the biggest thing was that I was putting pressure on myself leading up to Beijing. Now I am learning how to take that pressure off and seeing this as an incredible opportunity, but not like, 'I absolutely have to medal.'

Because winning a gold medal had been a dream of mine since a young age, I needed to empty my mind during the preparation for the Olympics by telling myself that it would be OK not to win a gold medal.

Watching previous figure skaters, I always wondered why they cried after their performance.

When you get to an event like the Olympic Games, you can put too much pressure on yourself.

During my first Olympics in 1980, at the age of 23, I was physically in great condition but mentally too inexperienced to cope comfortably in the pressure cooker of an Olympic year.

When I go to competitions, I don't have so much confidence that I don't worry or get nervous about the other skaters doing well.

I used to come out and say I was targeting certain players in the opposition team, particularly players I had had success against in the past: Gary Kirsten, Brian Lara and Michael Atherton, for example. It is a mental part of the game.

You have to forget you are playing against your idol, because the guy on the other side also wants to play better than you and beat you. I don't think you should allow yourself to think like this when you go against any player.

It's something I have to remind myself about, that at every competition, I put a lot of pressure on myself, almost like it's the end of the world, and I have to keep reminding myself it's not.

If I get annoyed because I'm not in the headlines and don't do well in training, I won't do well if I have to go in. I've to be prepared because the World Cup isn't easy.