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As a competitor and an athlete, you love that you get to go back and challenge someone, especially the world champs.

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.

Every athlete at his peak is going to perform with a different mental cocktail. I thrive in the underdog, reserved, it's-not-over-till-it's-over mindset.

As an athlete, you sort of just win every day. Because you're going to sometimes lose every day. And so you just keep picking yourself up and going forward.

You cannot allow your desire to be a winner to be diminished by achieving success before and I believe there is room for improvement in every sportsman.

For every athlete, it is very important to be able to engage in their favorite thing, give all the best in training, performing in competitions, defending the honor of the motherland.

You need to think outside the box. You need to think differently if you want to sustain what, for me, is my peak performance: the very best that I can achieve as an athlete every day.

As an athlete, success is not just about winning; it is about working hard and giving it all you have. I have always taken one match at a time and worked hard; when I succeeded, I worked further on the aspects of the game which worked for me; when I failed, I listed out my weaknesses and worked on them.

It's a fine balance for an athlete in enjoying the moment and being really satisfied, say, with a run, and with your day, and knowing you can make it better in the future.

One minute you're a developing athlete trying to get to the top, then the next minute you do well and win a medal somewhere, and then it's all foisted on you. You never know when it's going to happen. You don't think about the media side of things when you're a young athlete trying to do well.