While starving refugees in Homs were providing target practice for government snipers, Bashar al-Assad's strongest international backer was in Sochi, at the Iceberg Skating Palace, visibly moved, smiling with deep satisfaction, as the Russians beautifully glided and leaped their way to the gold medal in the team event.
I'd probably say the championships mean more to me, but the gold medal makes you a bit different. It's a special award.
That's the awesome part. Little girls now have a chance to look up and see women playing soccer, basketball, softball and now hockey - and know they can win a gold medal, too.
After I came back from London with a gold medal, my focus straight away was to defend it four years on.
Since I started playing at the Olympics in 2000, I have always wanted to do a dress based on Wonder Woman. It should be interesting to wear. And hopefully, it will get me a gold medal.
It really means a lot that I won the gold medal - but I woke up the next morning expecting to feel different. I felt the same.
For so long I wanted to win the gold medal. Then I won. I had to figure out what was the new motivation to take myself to that place again.
Coming in as a veteran, I'd like to finish with a gold medal.
It's kind of like I won a gold medal with my family.
To finish off this whole Olympics by finally getting the gold medal, it's the best feeling in the world.
Well my thoughts on American swimming are that our prospects look favorable, but we may not have as strong a showing in the gold medal count as in previous Olympics. But I am not coaching.
Muhammad Ali meant everything to me. He inspired me to box after watching re-runs of him winning a gold medal in the Olympics and being a world champion.
There was a lot of politics going on, and Ireland were denied an Olympic gold medal in 2008.
I want to win a gold medal in London.
And I want a gold medal more than anything. I just want a gold medal, so that's been pushing me forward.
The greatest memory for me of the 1984 Olympics was not the individual honors, but standing on the podium with my teammates to receive our team gold medal.
If I bring back only one gold people are going to say it's a disappointment. But not too many of them own an Olympic gold medal so if I get one I'm going to be happy.
I think as a Canadian hockey player, you go through it in your mind so many times, being able to stand on that blue line and hear your national anthem play and being a gold medal champion, you dream of that. And then to be able to accomplish that and actually win a gold medal and represent your country its an amazing feeling.
When I took the job as the manager of the Olympic team, I didn't take it because I was a Dodger. I did it because I was an American, and I wanted to bring that gold medal where it belongs in baseball, the United States. And that's exactly what our team did.
Here were these college kids beating the Soviets and going on to the Olympic Gold Medal. To me, that's the greatest upset of all time in any sport that I can think of.
I could be winning the decathlon in high school, which I've won twice, yet, if my dad is in the audience, 'Oh look! It's Anthony Quinn.' And I'm like, 'Hello? Kid just got a gold medal. Hello? I'm over here.'
This gold medal, to me, is a very good outcome from the many years I've spent on my professional career.
Joe Frazier's life didn't start with Ali. I was a Golden Gloves champ. Gold medal in Tokyo '64. Heavyweight champion of the world long before I fought Ali in the Garden.
Yeah, that's what kind of, we get the idea a little bit yeah, because other people from different countries also try as hard as they can to get a medal or a gold medal in the Olympic Games. And you know, if they can work hard, we can work hard as well.
No matter what, like, I couldn't - I could break a world record, get an Olympic gold medal, and my mom would be, like, you could have done better. But you looked pretty. That's what she says all the time.
Winning the gold medal should have been the happiest day of my entire life, and it just wasn't. It felt like the saddest day of my life. Everyone was so angry with us, that Scott and I had fallen in love, because it was so unprofessional, and we were a disgrace and had betrayed everybody.
'Witches of East End' is certainly wild, and so are a lot of other shows these days. But 'Twin Peaks' still holds the gold medal for strange. I think we'll hang onto that for all of TV eternity!
Everyone is getting prepared for this, to win the gold medal. I am among them: I want to win the medal.
The time frame is summer 1961, a year after the gold medal in the National Science Fair. I always saw my 'Coalwood' books as a trilogy. This book finishes the story of my life in Coalwood. I think it's the best of the three.
I'm just sorry I couldn't come home with a second Olympic gold medal.
I think the mental victory is worth it as much as a gold medal.
To win a joint gold medal with my brother - that's the dream, to cross the line together.
Anything other than a gold medal will be disappointing.
Looking back, I'm so proud to have gone to five Olympics - I believe only three other Americans have achieved that. My true gold medal, though, is my daughter, Karsen, who is 18 months old. And I have a wonderful husband, Mike.
My goal is definitely a gold medal still in Rio.
Winning a gold medal is not easy but I believed in myself, especially over the last four years.
