At the Salt Lake City games, Nike had hung up giant posters everywhere saying 'You Don't Win Silver, You Lose Gold'. Moderator John Powers asks Betsy McCagg how this effected the experience of the athletes at the games. She recalls seeing the posters and wondering whether it was worth going to the Olympics three times and not winning a medal. To her, the Olympic ideal of struggle is disappearing. For most athletes, the biggest struggle is getting to the games, which is in itself an amazing accomplishment. She remembers hearing Bode Miller once say that rather than winning, his Olympic ideal was to "bring an audience to tears ".

As a member of the team favored to win, AJ Mleczko and the rest of the American hockey team felt that they had failed when Canada won. She remembers meeting, aboard a plane on the way to games, a young athlete traveling by himself. When she asked him if he thought he would win he laughed and said he was just "excited to go ". Thinking back to the games, she sees now that her team got so focused on winning the gold that they forget that they were Olympians. The day after the last game, at a public appearance, it cheered her up to see that everyone watching her speak was bewildered by her silver medal. She now feels that any Olympic memorabilia, from a small pin to a gold medal, is a symbol of their efforts to come together as a team and play hockey. She adds, though, that it is easier to be proud of her accomplishments in retrospect years later.

Paul Wylie's time at the Olympics were the exact opposite of AJ's; he wasn't even expected to make the team. He recalls a New York Times reporter asking him, "What are you doing here? " CBS didn't even bother to make an 'Up Close and Personal' with him, since they thought he had quit. When he found out that he had made the team, his only goal was to have a great performance and to "give the folks at home a good show ". Coming off the ice, when he learned he was in second, he felt as though his entire career had been rewritten. As he sees it, the Olympics is the only event that can do that.