Mark Spitz Quotes (43 Quotes)


    It has nothing to do with swimming. That happens to be my sport. I'm trying to see how far I can go.

    Yes, I believe that the art of winning is through intimidation, and not necessarily do you have to speak about it.

    One of the most difficult things for people who have been successful in sports is adapting to the daily world where you can't get an answer from someone until 5 o'clock tomorrow. There is always an excuse. Living 40 or 50 years like that doesn't get too exciting after a while.

    I always wanted to be a dentist from the time I was in high school, and I was accepted to dental school in the spring of 1972. I was planning to go, but after the Olympics there were other opportunities.

    He gave me an opportunity to swim against the best swimmer of his day in the lane next to me, ... Don Schollander. He said, 'Keep up with him,' which I did. Then he taught me how to beat him, which I did. He was a great teacher. He knew what he was doing, and he instilled a tremendous amount of confidence in those around him.


    If you fail to prepare, you're prepared to fail.

    Because a known fact is better than an unknown fact.

    What it is saying is that someone who was a world champion and who takes care of himself with a 17-year rest and applies the proper training techniques and perseverance could be successful.

    Did I take it all in on the awards stand The only time I would have done that was my last event, because I was always thinking about the next one.

    In my day, at 12 years old, which was 38 years ago, we worked out in summer months for two and a half hours. Today someone in that age group might work out for four hours, two hours in the morning and two at night.

    I realized I had to step up to the responsibilities of my dream.

    Life is true to form; records are meant to be broken.

    There are times I might coach one or two workouts a year when the regular coach gets caught in traffic.

    Well my thoughts on American swimming are that our prospects look favorable, but we may not have as strong a showing in the gold medal count as in previous Olympics. But I am not coaching.

    Swimming isn't everything, winning is.

    To be recognized as great is the culmination of a career, not a specific event. So we will have to wait and see, for Ian Thorpe.

    The memories of the Munich games for me are of triumph and tragedy.

    I walked away from the sport for 17 years, then started swimming again recently in a master's program.

    My biggest loss was the Olympics. I just can't forget losing. I never will.


    I have a pool at my home that is 12.5 m long, so that if I swim eight laps, I can look at the time and say, that's my time for 100 m.

    I wasn't able to lower my cholesterol so they put me on a statin drug. It is called lipitor. I was able to lower my level in about 30 days from above 300 to below 200.

    I got beat real hard and heavy in the Olympic Games in 1968 by a guy who swam an incredible race one time in his whole life, but he did it right at the right time. I'd like to be that guy now. Maybe that's what I'm going to have to pull out of my hat to make the Olympic team.

    And if you have high cholesterol, you would feel the same as if you had low cholesterol because there are no side effects, no symptoms of having high cholesterol.

    If he wins seven golds and ties what I did, then it would be like I was the first man on the moon and he became the second. If he wins more than seven, then he becomes the first man on Mars. We'd both be unique.

    I'm at the depot, and I'm not going anywhere. That's better to deal with than having to deal with the unknown. And the unknown is they don't want to fail. They don't want to pay the price unless there's a guarantee they're going to get there.

    In everyday life there is always manana. There is no urgency.

    I am not qualified to talk about the diet. Simply because I am not a dietician.

    All things being equal, if we could simulate the same scenario, he has a lot more difficult task. He's elected to swim six individual events, as opposed to what I elected to do, which was four.

    The only side effect of too much training is that you get into better shape. There is nothing wrong with that.

    I'm trying to do the best I can. I'm not concerned with tomorrow, but with what goes on today.

    In my case, when my lifestyle was pretty good - I ate foods low in cholesterol and fat and exercised three or four times a week.

    The pool is terrible, but that doesn't have much to do with my record swims. That's all mental attitude.

    Goggles were not allowed. A cap was allowed, but I chose not to wear one. I grew the mustache because a coach in college said I couldn't grow one.

    Their destiny and where they want to be in life is not going to be a matter of chance ... it's really the choices they make, and they have to be committed to those choices.

    By making a comeback, I'm changing the attitude of people toward me. If I'd known that people would react so enthusiastically, I'd have done it years ago.

    New generation, I guess. The important thing is that we're getting the museum back on its feet.

    So in my mind I own a lot of house records still.

    When I went to the Olympics, I had every intention of shaving the mustache off, but I realized I was getting so many comments about it - and everybody was talking about it - that I decided to keep it.


    Past performance speaks a tremendous amount about one's ability and likelihood for success.

    It really changed how we do things in sports. Certainly, nothing happened to preplan or expect what was going to happen that day, as opposed to today, when extreme logistics go into planning.

    I just tried to keep my cool and continue with my race plan: to win.


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