Peggy Fleming

My sport taught me what I could do with my talents, whether in the rink or in the rest of my life.

Skating was the vessel into which I could pour my heart and soul.

The first thing is to love your sport. Never do it to please someone else. It has to be yours.

As a young child, I played the violin. I think that that started the spark.

The world went by, and we didn’t get caught up in all the other things, because we didn’t have time. We had no spare time. It was always thinking about training and focusing on what we wanted, our goals.

Then came the choreography… the impact of music and choreography tends to really emphasize an overall feeling of what you really want out of the program.

I think exercise tests us in so many ways, our skills, our hearts, our ability to bounce back after setbacks. This is the inner beauty of sports and competition, and it can serve us all well as adult athletes.

In 1968, in the midst of the tumultuous 1960s, the Olympics were much more than just another event.

I think skating helped me find myself.

We wanted to be achievers, but being an achiever didn’t mean that you stopped being a woman.

When I was on the ice, in the lights, with the music and the motion, there was a certain kind of flirtation that gave great energy and expressiveness to my performance.

I really loved what the guys were doing more than anything, how high they jumped, how effortless it was.

When the going got tough, I really had to draw on many of the same competitive instincts I did when I was skating. I really had to put my head down and stay positive. I had to fight.

Giving life to music through skating was something I wanted to be known for.