Bay Area Olympic Medals: Local Athletes Bring Gold Back Home To The Golden State (PHOTOS)

PHOTOS: Meet Your Bay Area Olympic Medalists

View more videos at: http://nbcbayarea.com.

The Olympics may be over, but now it's time for some bragging about how amazing California is.

Olympians from the Golden State brought in half of the total United States medal count. And in a region famous for the gold rush, Bay Area athletes represented well.

(SCROLL DOWN FOR PHOTOS)

Sources have differed on exactly how many of the precious metal returned to our fair state (somewhere between 44 and 66), but either way, it's an impressive haul.

Santa Clara native Keri Walsh Jennings made Olympic history by earning a third consecutive gold in beach volleyball. A fitting end to the "best beach volleyball team in history."

Megan Rapinoe of Redding not only won a gold with the women's soccer team but was one of the only openly gay athletes at the entire Olympics.

Nathan Adrian, a UC Berkeley student, bested the favorite from Australia in the 100 meter freestyle by just 0.01 of a second to bring home a medal for the Golden Bears.

Bay Area universities, Cal and Stanford, in fact, ranked among the top represented schools, winning 17 and 16 medals respectively.

The Olympics may be over, but there's still lots of celebrating to be done. Meet our local heroes in the flesh at a welcome home dinner hosted by NBC on September 22.

Scroll through the slideshow to see all the medals California athletes won:

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California Medalists

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