It's a beautiful thing, diving into the cool crisp water and then just sort of being able to pull your body through the water and the water opening up for you.

The Olympics remain the most compelling search for excellence that exists in sport, and maybe in life itself.

Make yourself an example, achieve it, but don't hurt anyone on the way up. I don't think I did that.

I knew that the stronger that I was, the faster I was going to swim, and thats all I had in my mind at the time, was I wanted to be the best swimmer in the world.

If you're good at it, you can win.

I've always believed that the desire must come from within, not as a result of being driven by coaches or parents.

We only have two things that we share in this life; we are born and we die. And what we do in between those times, we've got to be happy. I don't let the outside world deter me.