I remember the day I met Cammi Granato, a former star on the U.S. women's hockey team. We were at a Women's Sports Foundation dinner in 1996, and she came over to introduce herself. She had watched the U.S. women's soccer team win gold at the Atlanta Olympics and was hopeful the U.S. women's hockey team could do the same.
Growing up, I always dreamed of winning an NBA championship, never a gold. A gold was something that never crossed my mind.
After I came back from London with a gold medal, my focus straight away was to defend it four years on.
After one Olympics, if we invest in sports and say we will get a gold medal in the next Olympic, it doesn't work like that in sports. How it works is that you provide the infrastructure, provide education about nutrition and health.
I didn't think I would have an Olympic medal at 21, but I knew I would give my best and play my game. I just viewed it as my first Olympics and that I would take it one match at a time, but to bring a silver home made me very, very happy.
When I ran the anchor leg to a gold medal with my Canadian teammates Glenroy Gilbert, Bruny Surin, and Robert Esmie in the 4x100-metre relay at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, it was my responsibility to motivate the guys as unofficial captain and leader.
I wasn't jumping like Carl Lewis, but I still won an Olympic title.
Winning the Olympic gold was amazing.
I would be happy with an Olympic bronze. What I don't have is an Olympic medal.
The European countries are really hoping to do well in the Olympics. If they win gold medals, they can use them as cash.
I woke up on the plane this morning and was turning on my phone and I had to put my pin number in. That's when I realized that since the age of 10 I've been using 2012 as my pin number. But now that I've won gold in the 2012 Olympics, I've achieved that goal and, for the first time in 14 years, I'll have to change my pin.
I've been dreaming of winning gold medal in the Olympics.
Nagpur to Kanyakumari and Kashmir, future Olympic medallists can come from anywhere. It is the passion that drives you, not the city, provided you get enough facilities.
For me, back in Sydney, it was just being there and going out and beating Alexander Karelin, 13-time world champion and Olympic gold medalist. It was everything for me.
It's said that Norwegians are born with skis for our legs. That's why we always win the Olympics.
I think it's when I won the Youth Olympics I thought, 'I can really get gold in London.'
Do I feel any pressure as the most decorated Winter Olympian in American history? None at all. The only pressures that I know I face are those of how to pay it forward: How can I continually make a positive impact in people's lives, help others achieve their dreams, create their own Olympic mindset, creating champions within themselves?
Team GB's success at the Beijing Olympics can, in part, be said to have been made in Manchester. For example, all the cycling medal winners trained at Manchester's velodrome, the National Cycling Centre.
I have to consider my greatest accomplishments winning the Olympics because everything that I've done after that is really because of the Olympics.
After I won the Olympics, like any gold medalist, I did feel some emptiness in my heart. I did think about coming back to the ice for a long time. What motivated me is skating is something I am best at and I love the most. So I want to give it one more try.
And from that nineteen sixty four, this was my goal to go to Olympic Games. And I realized what does it mean, Olympic Games, like big celebration.
Apolo is going to have to keep skating so he can add more gold to his entourage.
I'm looking towards that Olympic medal and that Olympic gold and what it's going to take to get there.
Everything that happened in '92 was more than I had dreamed of... winning the U.S. title for the first time and then doing so well at the Olympics... It seemed to wrap things up so perfectly. I couldn't help thinking, 'How could I top that?'
The dynamic has really changed in the U.S. Americans believe they can be competitive, that they can win medals.
