Ashton Eaton

As you get older and gain more experience, you're able to do multiple things. You don't necessarily have to focus so hard on your performance in order to have a good one.

The more you do, the more attrition you experience.

The heptathlon world record is nice, but the decathlon is the event. I think the heptathlon is more like a practice. There is something completely different about the decathlon.

My mom and I have been through a lot. But when you think about it, whose life is perfect? It is just really good because we did this together.

What I feel like I'm doing is showing people what is humanly possible when someone commits their entire life to something.

It would be fantastic to spend your whole life trying to pursue something and then finally, at the last moment, you achieve it. You know, instead of getting it in the middle of the pursuit and spending the second half giving it meaning.

In our marriage, the success of our athletic dreams comes before everything. 'Hey do you want to watch a movie?' 'No, I have a hard workout tomorrow.'

I must refine my training every day to give myself the best opportunity to achieve my dreams during the Olympic Games in Rio.

The decathlon is exclusive company.

I would say 90 percent of the stuff we do is technical anyway. If you look at a two-hour training day, 12 minutes are probably spent running or gaining fitness.

The Olympic gold was like going to a theater and seeing a movie that had the ending you expected. But you left the theater thinking, 'You know, that was a good movie.'

It has been a pleasure being in the same era. I mean, the guy's last name is Bolt, and he's the fastest man ever. You can't write a story like that, and so to be in the pages in there is nice.