Ben Askren Quotes

From a personal point of view I want some medals because that is what you aim for when you start out playing.

I've been in basketball a long time, and nobody is more of a competitor than I am.

I don't know whether it's the athlete in me or the passion I have for the game: I always think that I can step back on the field and play.

It's impossible in heptathlon to have a proper rivalry - you're spending two days together and seven events and dedicate your life to it. It's like a marathon: two days of mental and physical exhaustion.

I have more respect for amateur wrestlers, especially collegiate ones, than anyone else. It's a gutsy sport with no real payoff except for knowing that you were better than someone else. It doesn't have big crowds, it doesn't have big money, but it is fun going one on one.

I have to play hard and at the end of the day I still have to strive to protect myself and so does everybody in the league.

To me, wrestling always comes first.

With everything else that would swirl around me when I got involved in it, tennis was my main concern.

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'm an athlete. I go out there and fight my heart out.

I played for 18 years, but the only thing that meant anything to me was the World Series.

Baseball is not a lot of statistics to me. It's blood and tears.

You know, I don't only play for the record books.

I probably went into sports with a sense of competitiveness and came out of it even more competitive.

I started wrestling at ten. I played a lot of other sports: soccer, football. I really enjoyed skiing. But wrestling just took off for me. It seemed to be the sport I had an affinity for; I liked the individual, combative nature. There's something special about that. It took me all the places I wanted to go.

Don't matter what they throw at us. Only angry people win football games.

I have so much passion for the game.

I don't think I was a perfect hurdler, but I guess I did win all the time.

After I came back from London with a gold medal, my focus straight away was to defend it four years on.

My goal is definitely a gold medal still in Rio.

When it comes to sports, it requires a lot mentally and physically.

It's not for everybody, and some of the toughest people I've ever met in my lifetime, I met in the wrestling ring.

I live to be in these matches.

Especially when it comes to the Finals and playoffs, your team needs you mentally and physically.

Just wanting to play, I think that's my biggest attribute, just wanting to play through whatever I have to in order to go out and compete.