Alistair Brownlee Quotes

I started swimming when I was four because my brother wanted to join a swim team, and I wanted to do what he did. They said I had to be six, but if I could swim a lap, then I could participate. So I swam a lap, and the rest is history.

I was an avid swimmer and was state champ at age 12.

Michael Phelps wouldn't have been on the Wheaties box if I stuck with swimming. I've been swimming since I was a little kid. I still swim. I'm the best.

I grew up in Florida, so you start swimming at the age of 1, really. By 10, I was competitive swimming, and by 12, I had aspirations to be the best in the world.

After my swims this weekend I think coach realized, you know what, you have to have a good one getting out of this meet. So I put the suit on and had a decent swim.

I wanted to be an Olympic swimmer when I was growing up.

It's always great to see young swimmers and their excitement and the joy that they have in the water.

I just always really wanted to swim. It was always a family thing: dad obviously swam, and my sister did, too. And mum used to come along to meets. They had to drag me out of the pool - so there was never any pressure on me to swim. It was just something I loved doing.

I grew up in a football family, on the sideline. I was a waterboy. It was kinda something I was around my whole life.

I joined the swim team when I was 12, and I was the worst kid in the pool - I was put with a group of 7-year-olds.

Getting to the Olympics was, has always been, my swimming dream since I was 8 or 9 years old. You know, right after I started swimming it was, 'I want to make an Olympic team. That's where I want to be.'

It really was my brother who got me involved in swimming. I wanted to be just like him and do everything he was doing.

I'm trying to focus on the 100 and 200 breaststroke now. There's no point concentrating on the 50 when it's not in the Olympics. I'm not going to quit the 50 but it's not my priority any more. I'll do it but as part of my bid for gold at the other distances.

Swimming is a confusing sport, because sometimes you do it for fun, and other times you do it to not die. And when I'm swimming, sometimes I'm not sure which one it is.

Swimming is great because there are levels of goals. First, when I was four, it was making it to the other end and overcoming the fear of standing up in front of everybody at a swim meet because I was such a shy kid.

I started playing basketball when I was about three years old. After that, everything else just came naturally. I had older cousins that used to let me hang with them, so I got my toughness from them.

I want to test my maximum and see how much I can do. And I want to change the world of swimming.

My dad was my Little League coach and my Cub Master.

I don't linger on the fact that Dawn Fraser was a great swimmer 40 years ago. That was in the past. I did break 41 world records, but I don't live on that today.

I went to football training when I was five because I think my father thought he had two boys.

When I was small, I was the same as everyone else. I used to play in a small council estate nearby. But it's really my family who taught me. I started watching my dad play from the age of two. I wanted to be like him.

I grew up a competitive swimmer. I wanted to go the Olympics. Both my parents were professional swimmers. I competed internationally quite often, right up until I moved to California to pursue music.

I grew up playing defense all the time with my older brothers and the older players.

There's not that many great swimmers from Brooklyn.

My whole swimming career was about training to beat Michael Phelps in any race I possibly could.