Dominique Moceanu Quotes

My first obsession was actually sports. I was a very good handball goalkeeper. With special permission, I played in the premier league in Germany before I was even old enough.

There's always a hunger, when you're young, to go from peak to peak and avoid the valleys.

Some days I'll have good starts, and some days I'll have bad starts. I'm really focusing on having more good starts than bad starts, and I traditionally do. But I would hate to make it all the way to the Olympics and have a bad starting day.

In my heart of hearts my motivation would always have been to be the best, and I think that athletics is probably what I was built for.

I'm still number one and I just recently won a major tournament ahead of my toughest rivals so I think I had a few years ahead of me if I decided to stay.

The Olympic Gold medal in 1968 was definitely the highest moment of my career. It was a dream come true. I was a 19-year-old boy, and it was just amazing to be standing on top of the podium and hearing the National Anthem in the background.

It's not hard to motivate myself because once you get a taste for winning races, you simply don't want to do anything else. You get a buzz from it. You want it every day. Only someone who has experienced winning can understand how good it feels.

One of the great lessons I've learned in athletics is that you've got to discipline your life. No matter how good you may be, you've got to be willing to cut out of your life those things that keep you from going to the top.

I want to know about what makes an athlete tick.

For athletes, the Olympics are the ultimate test of their worth.

I wouldn't say I'm a phenomenon, just a great athlete.

Just like music, sports elevates us to new levels of achievment.

I didn't want to settle or become complacent after winning a major, I wanted to stay hungry. It's easy to do. It's easy to win a big tournament and kind of get a little lazy, so it's been a good motivator for me to work a little harder.

I knew I was good because I was the only 14-year-old who could dunk backward.

The Olympics remain the most compelling search for excellence that exists in sport, and maybe in life itself.

I know I'm good enough to contend in each and every major I play.

To me it seemed in college ball, guys are more hungry. It's for a different circumstance when you're talking about playing for money and playing for heart. Not saying that guys in the NBA don't play for heart, but once you get that money, you're under a different mindset.

All I can focus on is playing as many games as I can at the highest level. If that leads me to the World Cup, then brilliant. It's certainly a target of mine.

To me, when you're not as hungry to train hard and learn new things and get better as you once were, I think it's time to stop.

There's so many levels. You can rise on the day to win a national event or a world title but the level you need to rise to win an Olympics Games is another one altogether.

Winning that gold medal at the Olympics is something I'll never forget.

Not only in the creative world but also in the sports world. The most successful achievers in sports are people that are really driven and have that spirit of hunger.

I want to be one of the greatest athletes ever to live, not only in track and field, but in all of general sport.

Here's an uplifting story. Congratulations to the Little League team from Huntington Beach, California. Yeah, they beat Japan to win the Little League World Series. That's pretty good. See, that proves that when math and science aren't involved, our kids can beat anybody.

I wouldn't be here if I didn't believe I was good enough to be here and hopefully I can perform well for my club and try and get to the World Cup.