Mikaela Shiffrin

“Drama holds you back.”

“I just - I fell in love with the sport when I started to ski gates. Once I was allowed to start training gates around 6 years old, then I really fell in love with it.”

“My whole thing is simple, well-balanced meals. I have to say, though, that I really like dessert. I try not to eat dessert every day, but I'll have dessert every now and then.”

“'Don't worry about it, and you'll be great,' said nobody, ever.”

“My dream job has always been to be a ski racer.”

“I don't really have time or interest in doing a lot of the crazy things that some of my teenage peers do, mostly because I have such a hectic life that I don't need to add to that chaos by creating my own teenage drama like a lot of teenagers do.”

“Out on the hill under the helmet, nobody sees your face or hair, but then you take it off, and they do - that's the part I'm nervous about.”

“I have to constantly keep pushing myself.”

“I have some really lofty goals that don't even scratch upon the Olympics.”

“If I leave any legacy behind, it's just the idea, just the theory that you admit to your ambitions, and you don't let people tell you you're wrong to have those ambitions.”

“If you strive toward the perfect run, accepting that you will always come up short of that is very intriguing. It makes me think about how in life in general, we always want to strive toward perfection, but sometimes perfection would be the worst thing.”

“I like it when hard work pays off.”

“I don't know what the point of life is, but I'm certain that five gold medals is not it.”

“It's hard to find someone who is really genuinely happy for you if you are having success and they're not.”

“Pasta is my superfood! Balance and moderation are the basis for my diet, though, so I also make sure to incorporate plenty of protein, fruits, and veggies throughout the day.”

“A perfect day for me would just be a day that goes the way I plan.”

“If you don't think it's possible to win five golds, go talk to Michael Phelps.”

“Most people just see ski racing during the Olympics.”

“When I get back on snow, it's almost like I travel back in time to that feeling I used to have. That youthful, 6-year-old, 'nothing else matters,' 'you're sort of the center of the universe' kind of a feeling.”

“I get this adrenaline rush from just going down the course and feeling like I made a really great turn and I'm going to do it again and again and again. That feeling can't be replaced, and that's the feeling I'm striving to get every time I go out there.”