By the close of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, Chad Hedrick had won a pair of Olympic medals (silver & bronze), bringing his career total to five and complimenting the astonishing fifty (50) World Championship medals he accumulated as an inline skater before setting foot on the ice. No other skater in history has amassed a comparable collection of podium appearances. He is considered the greatest all around skater in history.

Born and raised in Spring, Texas, Hedrick was in skates by two years old at the local roller skating rink his parents owned. By the time he was eight, he was National Champion. At sixteen, he was World Champion. Chad revolutionized the inline speed skating world with his own personal unique skating technique, originally dubbed simply ‘The Chad’ it is now universally referred to as the ‘double push’ or DP and is the standard for elite skaters around the world. If you aren’t using the double push, you aren’t winning. During his inline skating career Hedrick won 93 national championship events.

Inspired by watching former inline skater turned ice skater Derek Parra win gold at the 2002 Olympics, Hedrick made the switch to the ice. In February 2004, after only one year of ice training, he became World Champion – shocking everyone but himself. He went on to set six world records and was the first man in history to ever skate 10,000 meters (6.2 miles) in under 13 minutes. At the 2006 Olympic Winter Games, he captured the gold medal in the 5000 meter event, then added a silver medal in the grueling 10,000 meters and bronze in the 1500 meters.

In the years between 2006 and 2010 Chad struggled with injuries and coaching changes as he sought to return to the Olympic podium in Vancouver. At the 2010 Olympic Games he delivered a break-through performance in the 1000 meter event, a distance at which he had never before won a medal, to capture Olympic bronze. Days later, he added a fifth Olympic medal to his collection by anchoring the USA to a silver medal finish in the Team Pursuit event.

Chad now resides in Spring, Texas, with his wife Lynsey, and their two young daughters Hadley (born March, 2009) and Harper (born December 2010).