Pay the Price 

She bombed out of the 2006 Olympics in 22nd place after entering as the favorite. Since then, she tore an anterior cruciate ligament, suffered a long-lasting concussion and continued nonetheless traversing moguls courses 300 knee-, back- and brain-jarring yards at a time.

Over the last nine months in particular, as she won the 2009 World Cup title, Kearney honed her preparation to a science. Every day, following her workouts, she punched data from that day’s activities into a computer. Before the preliminary round Saturday, her trainer, Alex Moore, handed Kearney a card. When she opened it, she saw a lightning bolt on the front. Inside were the totals: more than 25,000 steps climbed, 14,000 jumps with a rope or off a trampoline, 1,000 tricks off ramps into a pool of water and 126 hours spent on a bike.

Following the epic sessions, Kearney would drive home visualizing winning gold. Never did she imagine doing so by such a large margin.