Summer Sanders Quotes

I think something that has separated me from the rest of the competition - maybe it's just my way of thinking - I don't necessarily go into fights just wanting to win but to actually dominate. So when I don't feel like I dominate, sometimes I feel like a loser, I guess, you know, maybe in that perspective.

As an athlete, you have to become quite selfish with your time and your body and your training.

As an athlete, you learn to keep pushing through the pain until the pain eventually becomes unbearable. Even then, you are told to continue.

You have to be willing to out-condition your opponents.

What makes a great endurance athlete is the ability to absorb potenial embarrassment, and to suffer without complaint. I was discovering that if it was a matter of gritting my teeth, not caring how it looked, and outlasting everybody else, I won. It didn't seem to matter what sport it was-in a straight-ahead, long-distant race, I could beat anybody. If it was a suffer-fest, I was good at it.

With athletes, it's never fully understood the level to which we push ourselves. Especially in an endurance sport.

As soon as I started to realize that I could make a living playing professional soccer, I went to that place where I could torture myself because I knew it would make me better for the championship game.

When you start off a new tournament, you want to do well.

Top athletes are like warriors.

It's been strange and weird watching the other girls at the U.S. Olympic trials just because I was training to be out there myself.

I want to know about what makes an athlete tick.

You can't control what the other athlete is going to do; you can't control anything except for your competition and how you execute the race or how you execute the task.

Games are not so bad because the adrenalin keeps you going, but training on a daily basis when every time you move it hurts, that is a real battle.

I don't ever want the players to relax in a game.

Nobody can walk on a track and beat me unless they have an extraordinary day and I have a bad day, which I keep from happening.

That's the thing with me being a former athlete: in the way I attack characters and attack poetry is from the base of being an athlete.

If I couldn't compete, I wouldn't ride. I don't ride for fun; I ride to prepare for the next competition, and everything that I do when I am in the saddle is always a calculated step in my path to the next win.

For me, I just love running in the big moments. That's always been the way. That is what you work so hard for. You don't work hard to run fast in practice or to run fast at small meets.

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

The majority of fighters and athletes live double lives.

I learned, for me to play at my best, I need to play with an edge.

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.

If any player in the world tells you he doesn't care about what the opponents do, he is lying.

I cannot see a situation when I won't feel pressure to play well and win.

Tennis is a very interesting world. It's a sport of opportunities, but it's a sport of challenges as well. And for anybody to continue to progress, they have to understand what those challenges are.