What does it take to be a champion? Find out at an intimate lunch with two Olympians. Enjoy lunch with US Olympians Joey Cheek and Tamara Jenkins in Denver, Colorado.
A native of Greensboro, NC, Joey Cheek grew up as an inline skater and made the switch to the ice in 1995. Cheek began his ice career as an "Allround" or distance skater but later switched to the shorter sprint distances, where he really began to shine. A bronze medal winner in the 1,000 meter event at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, Cheek fulfilled a lifelong dream at the 2006 Olympics in Torino, Italy, where he won gold in the 500 meters and silver in the 1,000 meters. That same season Cheek won the World Sprint Championships and became the first-ever recipient of US Speedskating's 'Eric Heiden Athlete of the Year' award. Perhaps Cheek’s most notable effort, however, began off the ice when he made the remarkable gesture of donating $40,000 in winnings to Right To Play, an athlete-driven international humanitarian organization that uses sport and play as a tool to help young people in the most disadvantaged areas of the world. Joey is also a motivational speaker and entrepreneur.
Olympian, entrepreneur, and global ambassador, Tamara was the president of the Southern California Olympians and Paralympians Alumni Association from 2012-16 finishing her term with the successful bid to bring the 2028 Olympic Games back to the United States. While working for Los Angeles 2028, she designed and implemented the first ever global athlete relations program that resulted in over 5000 Olympians and Paralympians world-wide participating in the effort to convince the International Olympic Committee to allow Los Angeles to host the Games for a third time and bring the Summer Games back to the United States for the first time in over 40 years.
As an Olympic Athlete, Tamara represented the U.S. in every major World Cup and World Championship sprint kayak competition between 1996-2000. She achieved her Olympic dreams when she won the U.S. Olympic Trials and was selected to represent Team USA in sprint kayak at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia. Since then, Tamara has dedicated herself to the Olympic movement as an ambassador serving in both volunteer and staff positions at the national and international level with the mission of empowering female athletes to follow their dreams and achieve their goals. This mission led Tamara to direct the award-winning breakthrough documentary, “Personal Gold: An Underdog Story” an inspirational film about four female athletes who become America's cycling medal hope at the London Olympics after top male athletes were banned as a result of the Lance Armstrong drug scandal.
Tamara’s entrepreneurial spirit flourished at UC San Diego and shortly after graduation she created her first company, vicaso.com. Launched in her hometown of Seattle WA, Vicaso is a platform that connects artists, designers, and photographers passionate about helping people sell homes with the professionals who create, build and sell them. Since then, Vicaso has completed over 30,0000 projects for it’s clients and created gigs for hundreds of creative professionals nationwide.