The training is tough as the U.S. sled hockey team prepares for the 2014 Paralympic Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, in ICE WARRIORS, premiering Monday, February 24 at 10/9C on PBS (check local listings).

As the Games ended, MEDAL QUEST’s Paralympians talked about how welcome they felt in London. The fans “treat me like one of their own,” says Dartanyon Crockett, as he and his teammates on Team USA remember the “awesome” competition. “I’m so glad I was here!” says Paul Schulte.

For Tatyana McFadden, London 2012 is her third Paralympics, a chance to add even more medals. For her sister Hannah, 16 years old, it’s a first-time experience. Their mother says she’s already won gold, having these two remarkable athletes as daughters.

Cheri Blauwet, seven-time Paralympic medalist and now a medical doctor, talks about injuries, athlete classifications, and doping controls. “I loved competing,” she tells MEDAL QUEST, and she’s proud to be working now to improve rights and health for all individuals with disabilities.

Archers Jeff Fabry and Matt Stutzman knew, going in to the Games, that the competition would be fierce in each of their divisions. Fabry, who releases the arrow with a mouth tab, and Stutzman, who shoots with his feet, fought their way through to the finals -- and two medals for Team USA.

Exactly a year before the 2012 Paralympic Games, Navy Lt. Bradley Snyder was injured in an IED explosion in Afghanistan. He set a goal of becoming a Paralympic swim champion, so he could continue to “take a lot of pride in the uniform I wear.”

USA’s wheelchair basketball players Paul Schulte and Joseph Chambers talk MEDAL QUEST through their bronze medal match against Great Britain’s “really good” players. The hometown crowd was so loud in their support of Team GB, Schulte says, that “You absolutely could not hear.”

Andy Cohn and Nicholas Springer of USA Wheelchair Rugby talked to MEDAL QUEST after the U.S. beat Team Great Britain. The London crowd was screaming for the hometown heroes, but Cohn says it’s just “awesome” to have so many passionate fans and Springer adds, “This is where the excitement begins!”

The most high-profile race in the Paralympics is the Men’s 100m sprint (T44), headlined by South Africa’s Oscar Pistorius, called “the fastest man on no legs.” The 2012 race challengers included the world record holder, Jonnie Peacock of Great Britain, plus a trio of fast Americans: Blake Leeper, Jerome Singleton, and Richard Browne.

Cyclist Allison Jones knew she wanted to get to the London Paralympics, even if she had to buy her own ticket and come as a spectator. Instead, she made Team USA and, racing on the first day of the Games, she won America’s first medal.

Rudy Garcia-Tolson decided last year to try to qualify in two Paralympic sports, on the track and in swimming. With heats and qualifying events before the finals, he’s competing more than a dozen times in the two weeks of the 2012 Games.

Blake Leeper wasn’t satisfied with the silver medal he won at last year’s Parapan American Games. He wanted to run faster, and after that competition, he tells MEDAL QUEST, he worked with his prosthetist to make running legs that fit him just perfect.”

On September 1, the Paralympic judo athletes worked their way from starting rounds to final medals. Myles Porter, competing in the -100 kg class, and Dartanyon Crockett, in the -90 kg group, describe a day they’ll never forget.

The US and China have a rivalry in women’s sitting volleyball dating back to the Beijing Games, 2008. In London, the two teams faced off in an early match, and USA’s Kari Miller and Katie Holloway talk about their preparation and describe the battle.

Goalball captain Jen Armbruster describes the team’s first game at the London Games against a tough Swedish team. Team USA won top honors in Beijing so they have “a target on their backs,” Jen says, but they’re still aiming for another gold medal: “the pretty one.”

Paralympic experts and athletes explain how competitors are grouped by kinds and levels of disability. The goal: to “level the playing field” so athletes win because they train and compete the hardest, not because they are less disabled.

As the London Games begin, MEDAL QUEST’s Paralympic athletes share their last-minute hopes and fears. “Everyone is as fit as they’ve ever been, as motivated as they’ve ever been,“ says one Paralympian. “They are there to win!”

Shooter Eric Hollen remembers strength training so intense, he held the gun out even when doing his homework. After the strength training, he says, top-level shooting is “90% mental.” First he relaxes, then he shoots.

Dartanyon Crockett was a high school wrestler, just “a kid from Cleveland,” when the U.S. Paralympics Judo team came calling. Moving to Colorado and learning a new sport were hard, but he “fell in love with judo” and is ready for his first Paralympics in London.

Swimmer Jessica Long won 3 gold medals at the Athens Paralympics at age 12. Then she won 4 gold medals, a silver and a bronze in Beijing at age 16, setting 3 new world records – and she still felt she’d failed. In this frank video, Long explains the pressures she felt as a teenager, and how she had to fall in love with swimming again.