American teen sensation Hannah Teter is making her Olympic debut at the 2006 Torino Games. The Vermont resident, who first made the U.S. team at 16, has been one of the world's best halfpipe riders since Salt Lake, winning the 2004 Winter X Games, the 2004 Grand Prix and taking bronze at the 2005 Worlds.

Hailing from a boarder family, Teter got an early start on her snowboarding career. On the board when she was 8, Teter took her first lesson at her home mountain of Okema because she wanted to hang out on the mountain with her older brothers. Siblings Abe and Elijah are members of the U.S. Team, and her oldest brother, Amen, is the full-time manager and agent for Team Teter. Hannah's fourth brother, Josh, is mildly autistic and does not snowboard, but he sometimes ski blades for fun (ski blades are shorter than traditional skis). Both of the Teter parents, Jeff and Pat, were skiers, but have since been converted to snowboarding by their children.

Off the pipe, Teter enjoys skateboarding, surfing, soccer and jumping on the trampoline. She's also taken a liking, as the entire Teter family has, to making syrup. Every year, the family gathers thousands of gallons of sap and then boils it, producing syrup. When they were younger, Hannah would join her brothers in climbing trees to hang buckets for sap collection. The process has been modified in recent years, but the family still gets together every March when the syrup is ready. Hannah even carries some of the homemade topping while she's on the road.

Though she's quite affable and daring, Teter does like to relax with candles and read spiritual books when she has time to herself. She knows she is "super-blessed" to be a professional snowboarder. "To have a passion for something, put so much into it, and then receive it back is so great," she says.

--NBC