Chances are very good that snowboarder Kevin Pearce, critically injured in a training accident will return to snowboarding. He may even go on to win a Gold medal one day. Pearce, thought to be a possible gold medal winner in the Vancouver Winter Olympics didn’t compete this year. He struck his head in a training run on New Year’s Eve 2009 and suffered a traumatic brain injury. He can’t walk unassisted, has trouble speaking, and has a long recovery ahead of him. But the discipline and drive that made him a world renowned athlete will come into play as he heals. That, and a loving family - brothers and parents who love him, doesn’t hurt either.

“You can’t let the bumps and bruises affect you,” Jeret Peterson said before the 2002 Olympics. “You’re toast if you do.” Peterson should know. Perhaps no one in these Olympics has come further or done more than Peterson to go for Gold. His sister was killed by a drunk driver. His best friend committed suicide in front of him by putting a gun to his head and pulling the trigger. He was sexually molested as a child. And when he had a shot at gold in the 2002 Olympics, but came in seventh with an imperfect landing he went to a bar to burn off his frustrations. A bar fight got him kicked out of the Olympic village in disgrace. He received over 500 pieces of hate mail, retreated into alcoholism, lost all his sponsors and gave up skiing to work at Home Depot. He was left to deal with his demons alone, except for his mother, who was on his side. Most people would have bet against his turning his life around, but here he is - at the 2010 Olympics, sober, stronger, changed.

Olympic Athlete Nicola Coles and others have atrial fibrillation. That’s a serious heart condition that can lead to all sorts of problems. Yet still they compete.

Speed skater J.R. Celski stunned crowds at the 2010 Olympics with a bronze medal. Only five months prior to his win he was bleeding on the ice at the U.S. Trials. A bone deep gash on his left thigh, six inches wide and two inches deep spilled so much blood on the track he thought his career as a skater was over. The blade was still stuck in his leg, and only an inch away from his femoral artery. Doctors would later use 60 stitches to close the gap. He would not return to the ice at all until eight weeks before Olympic competition.

“When I was laying on that ice, I was in defeat at first,” he later told CNN. “I thought my whole career was over. But I guess in those moments is where we truly define ourselves.”

Over the years the best stories to come out of the Olympics, for me anyway, are the stories of the things the athletes overcome and how in spite of death, disease, injury and all kinds of trauma, they manage to focus on their sport, on what they have to do to win, not just to compete.

They compete with bad backs, torn muscles, intense pain. They display an almost inhuman ability to overcome incredible odds. Is it all really just to win? Is it all for a Gold Medal? Or is it for what it represents? Many of those who don’t make the podium are a half-second off the gold medal time. Some days something as simple as a snow flurry, a drop in temperature, a mis-step is all to it takes to turn four years of focus into one moment of failure. Why do they do it? Why does anyone fight to defy the odds, to work through the pain, the fear and the sacrifices to win a medal, start a business, overcome a disability, find a loved one, save a nation or a people (Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King). It’s not for the money. There are easier, safer, saner ways to make money. What motivates us? Or better - what drives us?

I think J.R. Celski said it best:

“When I was laying on that ice, I was in defeat at first. I thought my whole career was over. But I guess in those moments is where we truly define ourselves.”

HOW we define ourselves in the darkest nights, not the brightest days, is who we become. As someone else once said, ”Hard times don’t build character, they reveal it.“

Who are you in the darkest of nights? Who do you want to be? How will you define yourself as you face YOUR demons?