I remember my mom let me stay up late and watch Tara Lipinski and Michelle Kwan compete in the 1998 Olympic Games. I made paper medals and wore them the whole night. I didn't start skating until 2000, but I was so inspired by their skating that it was why I wanted to start.
Adam Rippon
I don't want my Olympic experience to be about Mike Pence. You know, I want it to be about my amazing skating and being America's sweetheart.
When I found skating, it was something that was individual, and it was something that I could focus on being my best. And I loved the whole practice, and I also loved performing. It was probably the first time I felt really good about myself and that I was good at something, because I always liked being athletic.
I always loved music, to dance, and to be really active. When I started skating, it was the first time all of these things came together. It felt like magic, and I always wanted to be at the rink.
I've been skating since I was 10 years old.
The first time I ever sang in front of a crowd of people was, like, 10,000 people in Japan at a skating exhibition.
I think that in figure skating, and in sports in general, that when you're young, it's considered a huge advantage because you're fearless, and you also don't have bad past experiences. But with age comes experience, and I have found that my experience is a huge advantage to me as a competitor.
As an audience member, I like to watch what they're doing, and that's one of the reasons I love skating: because it's a performance, and I love to perform. That's my favorite aspect of skating.
Figure skating is not a hobby. It's my work, which I want to do, and do well.
Adelina Sotnikova
Yes, I am the Olympic champion, but this is not the end of it. I want all the gold that there is out there, everything that exists in figure skating. In all events, in all competitions.
I used to be a shopper before I had children. I'd go to Bergdorf and Barneys all the time. But now my weekends are spent differently. I go to the skating rink or the park, not the stores.
Aerin Lauder
If we have a situation where a man is particularly graceful in a sport that rewards grace - say, for example, figure skating - why is it that we don't say to the man, 'Well, you're too feminine to compete?'... I don't understand why we don't find it offensive also to say to a women who's very strong, 'You're too masculine to compete.'
Alice Dreger
Growing up, I was sort of a tomboy. I was the one skating with the boys.
Amy Smart
Figure skating is an unlikely Olympic event but its good television. It's sort of a combination of gymnastics and ballet. A little sexy too which doesn't hurt.
Andy Rooney
I tried ice-skating and wasn't very good at it.
Anton Yelchin
My parents were of the opinion, because they had started skating very young, that you should have something that you do that you care about, because it structures your life as you're growing up.
All the suits I buy have to be tailored, no matter what. But it's not just because of my height; it's because I've been skating for so long. My waist is very small, but my legs are just huge. Most really nice suit makers are Italian, and usually they make suit pants for Italian men. I'm like, 'Those Italians must have pretty skinny legs.'
Apolo Ohno
Vancouver is an amazing city and luckily, growing up in the Seattle area, I was able to immerse myself into the culture at a young age, traveling back and forth across the border for skating competitions as a youngster.
U.S. Speedskating has been riddled with problems since when I started my career, and we were always able to look past that. When it came down to performing on the ice, regardless of funding issues, we were always able to make it happen. And that's what it's all about.
With speed skating, it's like doing one-legged squats over and over again, with that one leg absorbing more than 80 percent of your weight. It takes an enormous amount of strength, and you're in such a weird position.
My life has always been compartmentalized into different aspects. I have my speed skating Olympic pursuits, I have my personal life and have my business life and have my entertainment - TV - Hollywood - whatever have you - always compartmentalizing every aspect of my life.
I think growing up in skating, I was surrounded by the LGBT community, so I grew up very aware because I was around it so often, and some of the kindest people I know are gay figure skaters.
Yu Na Kim, Mao Asada, Carolina Kostner - all these girls can do triple-triples in their sleep, and they have the skating skills and the spins and the rest of the technical jumps. So I have to have that as well if I want to be able to call myself 'competitive' against them. And when I say 'competitive,' I mean I want to win.
I'm so proud to be an Army brat, but it was not an easy life. Moving around so much, skating was that one constant thing I had to hold on to.
When my parents were paying for my sport, it wasn't just me out on the ice. Pretty much every dollar my mom made teaching went into my skating.
I want people to see a real person on the ice. I want to seem tangible, hard-working, passionate about my skating, not just going out and doing something I've rehearsed a million times.
Skating is one of those sports you unfortunately see people get stuck in.
Some skaters, they live for skating, and they are home-schooled. I'm very lucky my parents let me go to school and have a normal life.
My parents told me, 'Skating is a privilege, not a right, and school always comes first.'
In this crazy, crazy world of figure skating, it is easy to focus on a name or a target. But when you are going after someone, it really only holds you back from what you are capable of yourself.
It just comes kind of naturally to me to take something and try and make it relatable and interesting to someone who doesn't know everything about skating.
My mom devised a plan to get me out of the house and gave me the choice between ballet or skating. She knew both of those sports were time-consuming and would keep me busy with hours of practice.
The most important thing about skating is that it teaches you to do the things you should do before you do the things you want to do.
We got skate parks in different states, but me skating? Nah, I'm too gangster; I can't rock with it. But I watch it.
When you're in a sport like speed skating where the clock gives you the results, there is always a faster goal or a personal best to beat.
Apolo is going to have to keep skating so he can add more gold to his entourage.
I grew up figure skating, and in figure skating there is only a handful of black people at the time figure skating with me.
Because I don't look like I'm skating around as hard as Bobby Bassen doesn't mean my mind isn't working twice as hard as Bobby's mind. Just because I can't fight like Kelly Chase doesn't mean standing in front of the net getting cross-checked and slashed isn't toughness as well.
Kat and I were in our 20s when we won in '88. Our personalities were already established. We were ready to move on to a life of professional skating.
That's what amateur skating is about, technical expertise, and it should always stay that way.
So the programs all start to all look the same. I watched one free skating competition, and I thought I was watching a short program. Everyone was doing exactly the same elements.
I don't even know if you can blink in a hundredth of a second, and that's what it comes down to in speed skating.
When I saw the 2010 Games and speed skating, I had a change of heart. I had always dreamed of being an Olympian, and something clicked inside of me. I knew I had to move to Salt Lake City and make this dream a reality.
When I was a kid. I had traveled the world by the time I was 13 years old because of all the competitions I did for inline skating.
Being surrounded by hockey, I got forced into it as a kid. I started skating when I was 4 and had a rink only 10 minutes from my home. In my town, we had one outdoor rink and one indoor rink, so you could skate all year long. I lived by a lake, too, so we did a lot of skating on the lake.
I know that I am the kind of person that gets a little bit more nervous than other skaters, but that's because I care for my skating very much. I take all my emotions with me. I can't go out and say 'Now, this is just my job.' I really care.
Skating isn't about the medals or the results. I love what I do. It's much more fun to win, but you cannot every time.
The scenes in 'The Virgin Suicides' where Elle Fanning is ice skating are really amazing.
It was always so nice to step away from figure skating and school with hockey. To this day I'm still a huge fan.
If you are going to be ice skating for three or potentially six months you are probably going to get injured a lot.
