An overjoyed Ted Ligety celebrates gold in Torino.

‘Rollin' around in the snow'

In 2006, Ted Ligety brought back Torino gold in the Alpine combined. He says the first thing he remembers after crossing the finish is how excited his teammates were to see him. Steve Nyman and Scott McCartney tackled Ligety in the finish area.

"We just kind of had a big group hug, rollin' around in the snow. It was just pretty crazy," says Ligety. "It's so hard to really fathom what I had done."

Then Ligety found himself standing on top of the podium.

"When the national anthem came on I was trying to fight back the tears," adding with a smile: "I pride myself in not crying when I was up there."

Ligety says it was a moment to share with family.

"Then I saw my parents. My mom was crying and it was just kind of one of those things."

The reaction back home

When speed skater Chad Hedrick won gold in the 5,000 meters in Torino, he was stunned at first. But Hedrick still remembers the first time it clicked.

"I was wearing a gold medal around my neck. That's a feeling that few people get to feel -- a very amazing feeling," Hedrick says. Then he returned home to Texas, a state that can talk your ear off about football but could use a few lessons in speed skating. Hedrick says that didn't seem to matter.

"When I won my gold medal in Torino, it was like a hurricane had blown through Galveston," said Hedrick. "They had never heard of speed skating and probably ninety percent of them had never watched it. [So] when it all happened, they were sort of shocked. And when I came home, they embraced it."

A medal, a mission

For Hannah Teter, who claimed gold in the women's snowboard halfpipe competition in Torino, the celebration felt more like a calling. The idea came to her as she woke up the morning of the halfpipe final.

"If I win the gold today," Teter remembers saying to herself, "then I would want to use that to help out other people and to be a positive role model."

She says the positive frame of mind helped her lock-in her final run. The Vermont native has since founded Hannah's Gold, an organization that raises money for safe drinking water projects in Africa through the sale of maple syrup.

Hopes for gold in Vancouver after historic World Championship win

In 2009, Kikkan Randall did something no American woman had ever done before. She won a medal at the cross-country skiing World Championships -- a silver in the sprint event.

"It was a really incredible experience. Not only to just achieve, but [it was] a huge personal goal of mine, and a big historical mark for the U.S," Randall says.

Randall says the medal was especially rewarding because she was coming off a tough 2008 season.

"I suffered from a blood clot. I was unsure of whether or not I'd be able to come back to skiing at all. [But] to stand on the podium and watch the flags be raised was very, very exciting and it just reminded me of why I do what I do."