Shani Davis makes history, ruffles feathers with Winter Olympics victory

By EURWeb.com
(February 20, 2006)So what’s the real story behind the first African American Olympic speedskating gold medalist Shani Davis, his devoted mother and their collective cold shoulder toward U.S. Speedskating?

After the 23-year-old repped Chicago’s South Side Saturday (Feb. 18) by winning the 1,000-meter speedskating event and entered record books as the first black athlete to claim an individual gold medal in Winter Olympic history – Davis showed little initial emotion after it became apparent he had won the event, and followed it up with an awkwardly-cold interview to NBC’s Melissa Stark. Why all the drama?

In a nutshell, Davis and his mother, Cherie, have issues with U.S. Speedskating dating back to his early years with the team. Cherie believes the organization did things to sabotage the success of her only child because of his skin color. The organization vehemently denies her allegations.

As a result of their long-running feud with U.S. Speedskating, Davis doesn't train with the national program, and frequently voices his opinion about a lack of marketing opportunities. He is also more than happy to let his mother voice her opinion of the organization – which she does willingly and often.

Davis has always had to battle haters who joked about his love of the sport. As folks in his neighborhood worshipped the Bears, the White Sox and Michael Jordan’s Bulls, Davis was into Bonnie Blair, and proudly wore a sweatshirt bearing the face of speedskating’s most famous female champion. Needless to say, he was teased quite a bit. The sport’s uniform, a tight-fitting body suit, didn’t help matters - and neither did the sport’s domination by Caucasians.

Davis said he would tell his childhood naysayers, “Maybe I can be the Michael Jordan of speedskating."

On the flipside, Davis said he received constant ill-will from white folks who didn’t think too much of him competing in the sport. He says hate-filled messages were sent to his personal Web site — "people saying they hoped I would fall, break my leg, using the n-word," he said.

As for his current Olympics run, much drama has been made over Davis’ decision not to compete in the team pursuit competition, and instead focus all of his energy on winning the individual races – such as Saturday’s 1000-meter and tomorrow’s 1500 meter race (Feb. 21). Davis’ choice to forgo the team sport has some critics denouncing the move as selfish. Former speedskating champion Eric Heiden said Davis was “not being a team player.”

There is also a nasty rivalry going on with U.S. teammate Chad Hedrick, whose time Davis clobbered Saturday en route to the gold medal. Hedrick has criticized Davis’ decision to forgo the team pursuit because it took away a great source of speed. The team was eventually knocked out by Italy in the quarterfinals.  According to reports, Hedrick believed the team would’ve won with Davis in the lineup. The loss left Hedrick short of his goal to go after Heiden’s record of five gold medals at Lake Placid.

Throughout his time at the Olympics, Hedrick has been bombarded with questions about his rivalry with Davis. After Davis’ win on Saturday, reporters asked Hedrick if he was at least happy for the guy.      
 "Shani skated fast today," Hedrick said. "That's about all I have to say about that."

Davis will face Hedrick Tuesday night in the 1500 meter race, an event Davis dominated until Hedrick snatched away a world record. Sporting a Chicago White Sox cap following Saturday’s victory, a reporter asked Davis if he will specifically go after Hedrick’s record during the race.       
 "I'm not trying to beat Chad. I'm trying to beat everyone," he replied.      
Davis’ breaking of racial barriers in the sport was downplayed when asked about it by reporters after Saturday’s performance.  "It's a breakthrough," Davis said, "but it's what people make of it."

He did, however, take note of the hard work that led to his place atop the medal stand.        
"If you put your mind to it and you believe it, you can achieve it," he said. "You cannot give up — even if the road is a tough road."


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