When Joey Cheek makes up his mind, he always follows through. That’s how he went from being a local inline skater to a gold-medal-winning Olympic speedskater.

“Watching the speedskaters in the 1998 Olympics in Nagano, I looked at my mom and said, ‘I want to do that next,’ ” recalls Cheek.

Four years later, he was. And two Olympics and three medals later, Cheek is using that determination to be a successful philanthropist — a path he started down when he earned the bronze at the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City.

“My self-worth was always wrapped up in how I was performing,” he says. “But when I won that first medal, I realized it wasn’t worth killing myself over. I had to compete because I loved it. Winning wasn’t that big a deal.”

Meanwhile, Cheek learned about Darfur, a region in western Sudan that has been paralyzed by a violent civil war since 2003. “I couldn’t believe how people could be mowed down just because they were in the wrong ethnic group or tribe,” he says. “The amount of media attention paid to things like that was completely out of whack.”

Cheek seized the opportunity to give Darfur some much-needed attention when he took home gold in Torino. He won the 500-meter race and took the silver in the 1,000-meter. Shortly after winning the gold, he announced he was donating his medal bonuses to the Darfur relief effort and encouraged fellow athletes and sponsors to do the same. He raised more than $1 million for the cause and eventually became the co-founder of Team Darfur.

Team Darfur is an international coalition of athletes committed to raising awareness about and bringing an end to the crisis in Darfur. The group aims to educate the public and put pressure on Sudan and nations that have thus far turned a blind eye to the atrocities there.

“We have more than 135 athletes signed up to do as little as letting us use their name to endorse our efforts or writing their own governments,” he says. “It’s not massive protesting, but they’re efforts that could cumulatively make a difference.”

Meanwhile, Cheek attends Princeton University, where he’s majoring in economics and studying Chinese. “I figure studying both will be give me plenty of options when I graduate,” he says.

Somehow, between Princeton and Team Darfur, Cheek manages to find time to return to Greensboro. “Often, I’m sneaking in and out,” he says. “I have such little time with my family, I don’t want to have any hubbub when I’m there. I usually go in the summer or whenever I have breaks from school.”

Cheek’s work with Team Darfur may make those visits less frequent. Cheek says his Olympic celebrity has been fleeting, which has compelled him to do more for the organization. “For the most part, I’m a declining asset,” he says. “My work with Team Darfur is a way to keep things in the spotlight and keep pressure on the international community to do something.”