Sam Mikulak

“I'm a California kid, so I love the beach.”

“If you want to be the best gymnast in the world, you have to love the moment. Every single moment that you are competing. Every skill, you have to be showing it off. If you aren't showing it off, what are you doing?”

“My best event is probably... it actually varies day by day. But the high bar - it's the most fun for me. A lot of people like it. It's risky and dangerous. I like the adrenaline rush.”

“I keep joking with my teammates that Nickelback should be our walkout song. I think everyone secretly likes at least one song.”

“You can freak when you are at the Olympic Games. There are millions of cameras. Everyone is watching every move. Some people will trip where they would never trip in a routine. It's the small thing that nerves really bring out in people.”

“I got a degree in psychology at the University of Michigan and can most definitely sing the greatest college fight song of all time.”

“The No. 1 place I've visited so far was Antwerp, Belgium. That was one of the coolest cities I've ever seen. Every day I woke up, I felt like I was in a movie.”

“I know everyone has Olympic dreams, but if you really think about it, you just don't want to go to the Olympics. You want to be a gold medalist at the Olympic Games.”

“Learning how to compete is one of the most important things that an athlete can do. You can train as well as you possibly can and go compete and completely choke.”

“Gymnastics gives you the abs. It's not like I sit there doing like a thousand crunches before every practice or something like that.”

“I watched 'Apollo 13,' and it, like, absolutely freaked me out. I was terrified. I didn't want to go to space because I thought it was imminent death.”