Flying home from Vienna last week, I shared a couple flights with members of the USA Luge Team, as well as a few ski jumpers. Many were headed to Salt Lake for final preparations before Vancouver.

A day later, my wife, headed to the midwest, sat back-to-back in the airport lounge with two USA snowboarders, gearing up to compete in the half-pipe competition in Vancouver.

Then, Thursday, handball coach Marko Brezic and I ventured up to Park City to catch the final training runs of the USA Luge and Bobsled teams, followed by a meet-and-greet with the media and public.

Clearly, Salt Lake, eight years after the historic 2002 Winter Games, is a hub for pre-Vancouver activities - and more than 70 members of the USA Olympic team live and/or train on our slopes, jumps, sled track and skating oval.

We couldn't be more proud of them.  

You may not know too many Winter Olympians by name or face, but they're hard-working American heroes who have been chasing the Olympic dream for as long as they can remember.  Take Christian Niccum, who I met on the long flight from Munich.  USA Luge found him in Seattle 20 years ago. 

In a column written this week by Seattle Times' Ron Judd (friend of handball!), Niccum said, "It's a sled.  What I do is the ultimate sledding ride — it's every kid's dream."

It just proves that dreams like that can take you places!

And then there's Megan Sweeney.  She earned one of the last spots on the USA women's team by .0165 seconds (less time than a Joli 7-meter throw I think) - beating her little sister Emily in the process. She'll walk in her first Opening Ceremonies this Friday night - and slide early next week.

"These two girls competing against each other, going for the last spot, what can you say?” said their father, Larry Sweeney. “When they called to tell me, ‘You have an Olympian’ and I heard one of them say ‘Me.’ So I had to say, ‘Who’s me?’ That’s what family is about right there. They competed hard against each other, but the way it happened, they were going to support each other.”

Finally, Marko and I posed for pictures with the Bobsled team of Bree Schaaf and Emily Azevedo.  Schaaf is a former Portland State volleyball player; Azevedo is the record holder at UC Davis in 100-meter hurdles.  They're fairly new to the sport and America's long shots,  having qualified on about the last possible day, but they've been booked for Vancouver and that's what counts.

It stirs us all.  They'll re-light the Olympic flame in Salt Lake City for the duration of the Games - and many parents, siblings, competitors, friends, Olympians and plain ole' fans  will be watching for a fortnight, cheering "our" team.  It's exciting, it's inspirational and, especially here in Salt Lake, it's watching our friends and neighbors.

To our aspiring USA Handball Olympians training in Norway and Germany, Iceland and Long Island, from Atlanta to Chicago to Omaha to Colorado Springs to Los Angeles, all I can say is, "Work hard... watch these Games... and never relinquish the dream."

Go USA!