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The Olympics is this big global event, but when neighbours come up and wish you well, it feels more personal.

At the Olympics, you there to do a job. I feel you should take it seriously. You should be respectful. You are putting on the red-white-and-blue and going out there to perform for your country.

You show up at the Olympics, and you're no longer you; you're an American Olympian. You're part of this greater whole, and the individual doesn't matter.

The Olympics are a wonderful metaphor for world cooperation, the kind of international competition that's wholesome and healthy, an interplay between countries that represents the best in all of us.

But it is nice to know that you have other races lined up, because sometimes you can get so focused on your next marathon that it can become kind of unhealthy in some ways. So it's nice to have something else to slap you in the face and say, all right, there is life after the Olympics.

In Montreal, I kept thinking, 'Pay attention: this is the Olympics! It only happens once every four years!'

I'm so over the moon that I have the opportunity to represent my country at a third Olympic Games.

If you're going to stay in the Olympics, you've got to be entertaining and get sponsorship.

No one pretends anymore that the Olympics are just about sports. It's routine to talk about what effect holding the Games in this or that capital will have on the host country's international reputation, how a nation's prestige can be raised by its medal count.