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All my life I believed I became an athlete through my own determination, but it's impossible to think that being descended from slaves hasn't left an imprint through the generations.

Michael Johnson

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Michael Johnson
Age: 57
Born: 1967
Born: September 13
Athlete
Athletics Competitor
Sprinter
Dallas
Texas
Michael Duane Johnson
MJ
The Duck
Became
Imprint
Generations
Descended
Impossible
Slaves
Left
Hasn
Think
Determination
Thinking
Believed
Life
Athlete
Slave

More quotes by Michael Johnson

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A good traveller is one who knows how to travel with the mind.
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As strong as my legs are, it is my mind that has made me a champion.
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That first peak is the best place to pause and look back, to see if you took the easiest route, to learn the lessons from the first climb. And it is the best place to examine the terrain ahead, to change your plans and goals, to take a deep breath and begin climbing again.
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Protect your good image from the eyes of negative viewers, who may look at your good appearance with an ugly fiendish eye, and ruin your positive qualities with their chemical infested tongues.
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Don't shoot for something unattainable - completely outside of your nature or opportunity.
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I don't always do a lot of predicting, but, when I get a really strong feeling about something, I will tell people.
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As an athlete, I'd average four hours a day. It doesn't sound like a lot when some people say they're training for 10 hours, but theirs includes lunch, massage and breaks. My four hours was packed with work.
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Rivalries don't necessarily mean races being close at major championships. I had a rivalry with Butch Reynolds for many years. I won all the races, but Butch was the world record holder before I came into the sport, he was extremely talented and he was the only other man running 43 seconds.
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I always wanted to be a sprinter.
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I've had to learn that not everybody does things my way. But I do expect the absolute best of everyone around me, and I'm disappointed when people don't expect that of themselves.
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A bird, music and food -desert island items
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It is important that you strive for humility, but not humiliation, for a cool, level-headed confidence, not a stiff, delusional arrogance.
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How could you look more stupid than to be the guy accepting a bronze medal in gold shoes?
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I had already been into my professional career for six years and had not won an individual gold medal at the Olympics. There was a tremendous amount of pressure going into 1996 to get it done.
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They think because I'm small, they can do what they want to do to me. But I'm not weak. If I lower my shoulder and they lower they're shoulder, they're going to go down.
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Opting for gold shoes could have been considered downright cocky, but I was confident and never doubted my ability to deliver gold medals to match my shimmering footwear.
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Life is often compared to a marathon, but I think it is more like being a sprinter long stretches of hard work punctuated by brief moments in which we are given the opportunity to perform at our best.
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One of the main techniques I used was focusing on the goal and visualising myself competing in the race before the race started.
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Examine the opportunities, the challenges you've given yourself.
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On the £20,000 Mercedes prizes for each winner at the World Athletics Championships in Stuttgart- Anyone good enough to win already has one.
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