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The Olympics is about showing what you've done with your life, your dream as an athlete and sharing that with the world.

I think that there's something extremely beautiful about the Olympic ideal and its motto - 'Swifter, higher, stronger' - it's such a beautiful motto, and it celebrates everything which is the antithesis of death and dissolution and entropy.

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.

You hit one level of the sport, and then you want to get to the next level. Until, eventually, the Olympics becomes part of that dream, part of that goal set and the mindset of wanting to get there. And then you realize there's so much incredible hard work and determination and effort that you need to put in along the way.

The Olympics is about letting people believe in their own dreams.

The spirit of the Olympic movement is great for young people because it teaches them about the training and discipline required to compete. Even if they don't make the teams, they can rededicate their lives to the art of sport, discipline, and physical fitness.

In our view the Olympic idea involves a strong physical culture supplemented on the one hand by mobility, what is so aptly called 'fair play', and on the other hand by aesthetics, that is the cultivation of what is beautiful and graceful.

Sport allows us to engage in dialogue and to build bridges, and it may even have the capacity to reshape international relations. The Olympic Games embody perfectly this universal mission.

Olympians are the product of the Movement, and to get them to the stadiums, pools and playing fields, it takes the actions of legions of people who might not be Olympians.

Life is about opportunities, creating them and embracing them, and for me, that was the Olympic dream. That's what defined me. That was my bliss.