Alexander Gustafsson Quotes

When I started training to fight, it was more out of boredom than anything. I was looking for more things to do. I started with boxing, and my coaches told me I had a lot of potential and that I should consider making it a career. I was like, 'Whatever.' I was just 15 at the time, and I never imagined something like that.

I just try to be the best fighter I can be.

I'm committed to the fight game.

I train really hard for each and every fight. I never take anyone lightly.

I'd turn up to the gym early and just be there, waiting outside, knocking on the door. It was something I thought I was decent at. I enjoyed fighting; it's how I've always been.

My job is to train hard, go fight, and do my best.

I want to become a world-class player.

I had a fantastic career. I loved being a professional athlete.

I had only been training for a year and half when I did the World Games. Then the next year I did the British championship as a heavyweight and won that.

I've got my dreams. I want to be the best fighter on the planet.

When I was playing I never wished I was doing anything else. I think being a professional athlete is the finest thing a man can do.

I knew nothing about martial arts. The coach told me I was talented with learning martial arts, and put me in a school. Three years later I got my first championship in China.

If you're going to dedicate every second to winning the decathlon, what are you doing wasting your time in bed?

They see themselves as athletes and only athletes.

Football brings you lots of lovely things, but then you have to realise that it's actually a job.

In our view the Olympic idea involves a strong physical culture supplemented on the one hand by mobility, what is so aptly called 'fair play', and on the other hand by aesthetics, that is the cultivation of what is beautiful and graceful.

I'm a martial artist, and I don't train because I have a fight; I train because it's my lifestyle, and I'll train every day if I'm not hurt.

I think the sport of wrestling, which I became involved with at the age of 14... I competed until I was 34, kind of old for a contact sport. I coached the sport until I was 47. I think the discipline of wrestling has given me the discipline I have to write.

I have great admiration for athletes. They are just like actors in a lot of ways. They have tremendous pressures and conflicts. They have to compete, and they can't stay home just because they have a head cold.

As a professional football player, I have known perfectly well from the day I started playing that every day I have to fight for my place.

The spirit of the Olympic movement is great for young people because it teaches them about the training and discipline required to compete. Even if they don't make the teams, they can rededicate their lives to the art of sport, discipline, and physical fitness.

The doors fly open when you're a professional athlete.

Growing up as an athlete, I started skating very young. My parents didn't know anything about the sport, so they went with the flow. I had two great coaches who gave great advice and gave guidelines for my parents. My parents let the coaches dictate what was going on on the ice.

I think four Olympics is probably enough. Five Olympics is a long time, but there's nothing wrong with that if I'm into it and I'm healthy and my priorities can fit around that.

Gymnastics is my whole life, and I dream of going to the Olympics and being a world champ.