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.

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.

A good mentor offers directions and driving tips from the back seat. You still have to drive the car.

They think because I'm small, they can do what they want to do to me. But I'm not weak. If I lower my shoulder and they lower they're shoulder, they're going to go down.

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.

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.

It is clearly not the journey for everyone. People succeed in as many ways as there are people. Some can be completely fulfilled with destinations that are much closer to home and more comfortable. But if you long to keep going, then I hope you are able to follow my lead to the places I have gone. To within a whisper of your own personal perfection. To places that are sweeter because you worked so hard to arrive there. To places at the very edge of your dreams.