Opting for gold shoes could have been considered downright cocky, but I was confident and never doubted my ability to deliver gold medals to match my shimmering footwear.
A good traveller is one who knows how to travel with the mind.
Examine the opportunities, the challenges you’ve given yourself.
The basis of self-discipline: Don’t allow the edges to blur.
I believe that it is better to learn from the diverse people around us than to try in vain to emulate them, better to be a teacher than a role model. As strong as my legs are, it is my mind that has made me a champion.
You owe it to yourself to find your own unorthodox way of succeeding, or sometimes, just surviving.
I always wanted to be a sprinter.
As an athlete, I was never really comfortable with being a celebrity.
How could you look more stupid than to be the guy accepting a bronze medal in gold shoes?
The only thing you can never change is your values.
Difficult as it was to hear, slavery has benefited descendants like me – I believe there is a superior athletic gene in us.
I work hard to improve myself as a person – as a father, as a husband, as a manager. I’m always on that mission.
I don’t always do a lot of predicting, but, when I get a really strong feeling about something, I will tell people.
All my life I believed I became an athlete through my own determination, but it’s impossible to think that being descended from slaves hasn’t left an imprint through the generations.
Your problems pale in comparison with those of the millions of people in the world who do not have enough to eat.
I’ve had to learn that not everybody does things my way. But I do expect the absolute best of everyone around me, and I’m disappointed when people don’t expect that of themselves.
The mind is absolutely instrumental in achieving results, even for athletes. Sports psychology is a very small part, but it’s extremely important when you’re winning and losing races by hundredths and even thousandths of a second.
Rivalries don’t necessarily mean races being close at major championships. I had a rivalry with Butch Reynolds for many years. I won all the races, but Butch was the world record holder before I came into the sport, he was extremely talented and he was the only other man running 43 seconds.
I had already been into my professional career for six years and had not won an individual gold medal at the Olympics. There was a tremendous amount of pressure going into 1996 to get it done.
As an athlete, I’d average four hours a day. It doesn’t sound like a lot when some people say they’re training for 10 hours, but theirs includes lunch, massage and breaks. My four hours was packed with work.