Tag Archives: Darfur

Midas touch: Olympic-sized goals for Greensboro gold medalist

Since winning a gold medal in the men’s 500 meter speedskating race at the 2006 Winter Olympics, Greensboro native Joey Cheek has given motivational speeches, graduated from Princeton University and started his own sports-related website.

My October 2011 interview with renowned Greensboro speedskater and Olympic Gold medalist Joey Cheek about life after the medals. The story is here.

Excerpt: “Joey Cheek has done a lot since he grabbed the nation’s attention in 2006 by winning a speedskating gold medal in the Winter Games in Turin, Italy, and then donating his prize money to draw attention to the war-ravaged Sudanese region of Darfur. He raised more than $1.5 million for that cause, with $300,000 coming from his hometown of Greensboro. He graduated from Princeton University, majoring in economics and Chinese. He’s delivered scores of motivational speeches to corporate audiences nationwide. He became an entrepreneur, founding a sports-related website.”