Q1: Is this a matter of one (gold medal) down and four to go?
CHAD HEDRICK: "Ah, that's the famous question right now. But right now I'm just taking it one race at a time. I'm having the time of my life out here. This is my first Olympics, I won my first race ... the speculation of doing what Eric (Heiden) did, I would like to downplay that a little bit. I just want to come to the rink everyday and have fun. The more fun I have, the better I'm going to stay. This was a good start. Not only for myself, but for the U.S. team. I'm hoping this is going to create a spark for the other guys as well."

Q2: What are your chances in the relay now that Shani Davis pulled out?
CHAD HEDRICK: "I told everybody before that we had a really, really good chance if Shani skated. It looks like he might not do it as of now. But I'm going to go and do my best to help the team. I'm a total team player, everybody's helping me train and the guys who are going to be on the team have contributed to the group and we're going to go and do our best. Its not an individual event. Obviously my priorities are individual events. I didn't train 28 years of my life to come out here and do the three-man team pursuit, honestly. But when I go to the line, I'll do whatever it takes to make our team the best it can be."

Q3: Can you discuss your emotions before the race?
CHAD HEDRICK: "I'm a really a confident person, as all of you know. I like to quote what I'm going to do before races, I like to say I'm going to do this or do that to put pressure on me. Because when I read it I have expectations to live up to. But before the race today, the situation with my grandmother dying (15/16 - inaudible) years ago on February 11, looking around at the crowd, just 28 years of working towards the gold medal at the Olympics and not only to win the medal, but to be here and participate in the Olympics. It finally happened. And I broke down in my warm-up and actually started crying. I had to go up into the stands and give my family a hug and get rid of the tears because I didn't want it to have a negative impact on my race today. But the tears just meant that all the work and all the sweat and the sacrifice that I've put into my sport meant so much to me today to come here and do well. I thought it was going to be a little more emotional after the race. But now I'm just really, really confident that the other races coming up are going to be just as good. It ‘s a great start for me. I'm really confident that things are going to go well."

Q4: Does this make it a little sweeter, having won so many inline world championships and not being in the Olympics?
CHAD HEDRICK: "As an inline skater I was world champion for almost 10 years and I'd go home to Houston and tell people what I did. Nobody ever knew what I was talking about. ‘An inline skater, what's that?' you know? I'm glad to say that after today everybody people are going to understand what I do an that's the biggest thing right now. that's so important to me to get it off my chest. Now when I say I'm an ice speedskater, everybody in my hometown of Houston, we've never even heard of ice speedskating until six months ago, until I introduced it to the new city. But everybody is going to know what it is because of this situation here tonight. I'm so glad to preseent the sport to new people and new cities. It's awesome."

Q5: Did you feel confident going out there knowing the time you had to beat (Sven Kramer's 6:16.40)?
CHAD HEDRICK: "It's funny. I was sort of describing the Olympics to my teammates today like, we've been here for 12 days now, I'm a really confident skater, but you start to think about things you don't normally think about. It was time to get one race under the belt, come here and perform. I did that tonight and now I feel a lot better. You're right though. Tonight I was in complete control. Every step of the way I knew what I needed to do and if I would have had a time that was a little faster to beat, I'm sure I could have boosted it up a little bit. I was going to do whatever it took. This was such a special moment for my family and my friends, it was awesome."

Q6: You've accomplished so much as an inline skater. With all the things you've accomplished in that sport, does it compare to what you did in one race today?
CHAD HEDRICK: "I was very happy with my successes as an inline skater. I have 50 gold medal at the world championships over 10 years. It's crazy to me because I came to ice skating when I was 25 years old and it's sort of ... it's a scary thought to me to think about what my ice skating career would have been like if I came out here when I was 20. I grew up a lot as a person, going through traveling and competing in world championships. I think my competitive side of me came from being at the top of my game in inline skating and now I can't stand to lose."

"I think it's happened correctly. I wish I had quite a few more years to speedskate, but after these Olympics if I'm not happy with what I'm doing, if I don't want to go to the rink every day and skate, then this might be it for me. I've always been one to do what makes me happy.

Q7: Were you surprised by the standing ovation you received from the Dutch spectators?
CHAD HEDRICK: "With the Dutch crowd ... I deal with them all the time. In three or four weeks I'll be in Holland for the World Cup finale and there'll be 10,000 or 12,000 people there wearing all orange. I deal with them a lot, I have to put up with a lot, but I think I make the sport quite a bit more interesting for all the Dutch people and hopefully all Americans and Europeans.

"But I was really excited and nothing was going to get me away from what I wanted to do today. My grandma, she gave me some extra power today. With two laps to go and I was a little tired, it was just like, this is for her. All the support she gave me. She and my dad taught me that if you can't do something 100 percent, you don't do it at all. That's where I am today."

Q8: Holland's Sven Kramer, your closest competitor, skated to the world record on your home ice (Salt Lake), this was the first time this season you appeared after Kramer. Was this good for you? Secondly, with this gold medal, is the revolution complete for inline skaters?
CHAD HEDRICK: "Well, I would like to think that I'm a representative of inline skating. Thousands of my friends around the world will be watching this event and I'm proud to represent them."

Q9: About the world record in Salt Lake City ... Sven skated a really good race to set the world record. But that was a lesson learned for me. I started out with a 27.5 on my first lap for a 5k, which was unheard of.
CHAD HEDRICK: The world record is a 6:08 and I had my target at 6:05. I was trying to beat the world record pretty bad. But today is just a day where I knew what I needed to do. I knew I had what it took and I knew I worked hard enough to make it happen. It did and, man, the next four races are going to be a lot easier than this one.

Q10: You said that the more fun you have, the better you perform. Any plans tonight?
CHAD HEDRICK: "(Laughs) I'm going to be pretty easy tonight, we're going to be roaming around everywhere. I've never been one to go home at 10:00 and go to bed whenever I do something well. We're going to go out, have a little bit of fun and celebrate. Because this is my first Olympic race and I'm going home with a gold medal. I think that's something pretty exciting for me."

Q11: You were on Olympic record pace until the last lap. Can you talk about that final lap?
CHAD HEDRICK: "The ice was really slow today. I'll take 6:14 everyday on this ice. I'm not here to break records, I'm here to win gold medals and I did that today. It's going to be great momentum for the next race."

Q12: You thought you were going to be more emotional after the race. Was it more of a relief than emotions?
CHAD HEDRICK: "In a very polite way, I guess the battle was before the race. All the thoughts that go through your head before the race is much harder than doing the race itself. We came here too early. I have to be the first one to admit: I would never, ever come to the Olympics more than a week ahead of time and we were here 12 days. The things that went through my head ...

"I can only imagine people who aren't as confident as me, what would go through their head. How much of a mess that they would be. I was thinking of things that I would never have thought about before, you know? Is my skate sharp enough? Just dumb stuff. Next time I'll probably be here about five or six days before just to get use to the ice and get going."