For one who was among the most talked-about American athletes at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Italy, and who made a controversial splash around the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing, Joey Cheek slipped in and out of Vancouver with barely a notice.

Mostly by design, as opposed to being a politicized outcast, which is how he felt at the last Olympics two years earlier.

"I went to the Olympics as a fan -- for the first time in my career," he said. "I like status and being known, but it's fleeting.

"In the grand scheme, sports is about as inconsequential as it comes. You win now, great. Next year, we'll have another hero."

Cheek spoke without bitterness, merely acknowledging and speaking honestly, as is his admirable custom, about the facts of American pop-culture life. More than most athletes, Cheek knows how the system works.

His lowered profile is deliberate, and temporary.

Four years after he won gold and silver in men's long-track speedskating, and eight years after he won bronze in Salt Lake City, Cheek is a 30-year-old junior at Princeton, majoring in economics with a minor in Mandarin.

These are not the choices of a man who someday aspires to run concessions at a skating rink.

His dramatic gesture in Turin, in which he donated $40,000 in prize money from the U.S. Olympic Committee -- $25,000 for gold, $15,000 for silver -- to Right to Play, an international humanitarian organization, drew worldwide acclaim and fame, and launched Cheek into worlds he knew not.

His persistent focus on genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan brought him into the crosshairs of the Chinese government, which imports much of its oil from the African nation. On the eve of the Summer Games, he was denied a visa, and athletes whom he helped recruit to the cause were pressured to disavow their association.

The commitment to conscience beyond sports also brought him Thursday to Tacoma, where he received the Peace Builder Award from the Wang Center for Global Education at Pacific Lutheran University.

As the keynote speaker for a symposium, "Understanding the World through Sports and Recreation," and in an interview afterward, Cheek offered an honest glimpse of a rare pro athlete willing to do much more than write a check to cover his public give-back obligations.

"The big transition that was hard for me was six to eight months after Torino," he said. "I thought once we talked about (Darfur) and media took it up, it would be fixed, because no one who learned about this would NOT do anything about it."

The naivete soon morphed into activism.

"When I was doing things as a humanitarian, you get praise and good press; who's against helping kids?" he said. "You can only do that for so long before you realize that as nation-states grind against each other, they use people for lubricant, grinding them to pieces inside these big global games."

That's when Cheek moved from saying the right things to doing the right things: Raising funds, pressuring politicians, making speeches, recruiting athletes and celebrities and annoying some of the powerful.

When the campaign to pressure the Sudanese government to halt operations against its own people reached the United Nations, China stubbornly refused to authorize deployment of UN troops.

"China was obstructing, and that really went against the Olympic spirit I believe in," Cheek said. "I thought that maybe other athletes and people would agree with us. Firing up Team Darfur, I didn't understand.

"We started hearing from athletes who were getting pressure from their governments who were getting pressure from the Chinese to remove their names and any affiliation with Team Darfur.

"It was eye-opening how serious the issue was that I had gotten myself into."

The International Olympic Committee awarded Beijing the Games in 2001. Cheek hoped that the IOC would bring some pressure to bear. Instead, the IOC not only did nothing, it offered no assistance to help Cheek get to Beijing, where his political stance was perceived as a threat.

"When they banned me, the IOC basically said, 'This guy isn't one of us,'" he said. "Two years earlier, I was lauded as an emblem of the Olympic spirit. The USOC said he's an independent citizen.

"What message does that send to other athletes who'd be interested in doing something remotely controversial?"

Cheek, along with many others around the world, was dismayed but unsurprised that as the Games neared, Beijing reneged on all of its pre-bid promises to embrace human rights, political speech and press freedoms. The IOC did nothing but capitulate.

"Let's say the IOC said to China, 'If you don't live up to your obligations, we won't let you host these Games,'' he said. "I know people say that's absurd, but it's absurd only because we say it is."

Acknowledging that China deserved to host the Games, and that they were a competitive and commercial success, Cheek, in what he termed purely an intellectual exercise, wondered what would have happened if the IOC had stood its ground.

"If I were in their place, would I have done it? Who knows?" he said. "But at the end of (IOC chief) Jacque Rogge's life, a lot of people aren't going to care. What impact did he have?

"My view of the institution of the Olympics is still pure. If he had said the Games were going to move, it would have rewritten the history of the world. The IOC could have said the Games truly are a force for humanity, for things that we believe in.

"Instead, they're not. An opportunity was missed."

Such boldness on matters beyond the games is rarely heard from sports figures. Cheek understands -- to a point.

"I benefited a lot from the halo of 'Oh, he's the sweet Olympian' kind of image," he said. "I know that the top Olympic athletes have the most to lose by making political gestures. I don't think everyone has to stand up and say, 'I'm going to risk everything.'

"But I think everyone can stand up and say, 'I think we can do something better.' Small contributions ultimately make big differences."

Cheek understands that while politicizing the Games is hazardous, China intended and executed a plan to use the Games as a political weapon. Because the money was too good, the IOC let them succeed.

For those who believe there should be a bit more to the Olympics than selling beer and hamburgers on American TV, and who believe there is more to athletes than merely sports, there's a gold medalist at Princeton training to become an economist who speaks Mandarin.

Remember the name. His contribution will not be small.

EAGLE RIVER - Jinelle Zaugg-Siergiej's parents are back home in Eagle River. Now they're remembering their time in Vancouver, with hundreds of photos and videos.

"It was just an amazing experience and something that we'll cherish and remember for the rest of our lives," says her dad, Chuck.

"Incredible. I'd say it was incredible, because it was far exceeding our expectations," says her mom, Pam.

Pam and Chuck Zaugg, along with 13 of Jinelle's closest friends and family went to the games. The U-S provided a home with free meals for all of the teams' families, which brought a lot of camaraderie.

"All the families of the Olympians were super nice and the Olympians we met were always very nice," says Chuc

He says Jinelle got very close to Olympians, including snowboarding gold medalist Shaun White and figure skating gold medalist Evan Lysacek. He says it was cool to meet the celebrities, but he and Pam say just watching the events with the other families was even better.

"As a group of US Citizens, US supporters, we would cheer on the US person in that event," says Pam.

The Zauggs did get to see some sports in person. An a amazing experience, but still, they say, none could compare to watching Jinelle's games. Especially the final.

"To watch the intensity of the sport go up a notch made it a bit more nerve-wracking, but it was good hockey," says Pam.

"A packed house. It was sold out and the 20,000 or 19,000 people that were there, it was an amazing experience," says Chuck.

Jinelle's parents say they were hoping she'd strike gold in that last game, but say the silver medal is definitely a weighty accomplishment.

"It's heavy, it's really heavy," says Pam.

"She's always going to be known as an Olympian that has a silver medal and there's not too many people that have that and so, I'm very proud of her," says Chuck.

The Zauggs say the medal moment was thrilling, but unfortunately they didn't really get to see Jinelle get her silver. Her back was to them out on the ice.

"We came back and watched it on TV and I cried when I watched her blow her kiss, that was kind of something Jinelle does at the end of her games," says Pam.

The Zauggs say they're letting everything sink in. They say being home it's back to reality, but now that they're the parents of an Olympic Silver Medalist, reality is a little bit different.

As for the Olympian herself, Jinelle is spending time with her husband in Florida.

Tomorrow she will fly out to Los Angeles to appear on the Ellen show with her team mates.

The show tapes Tuesday and will be aired this Wednesday.