Yeah, baby! Shani Davis just became the first black person - from any country - to win an individual gold medal in Winter Olympic history, conquering the men's 1,000-meter speedskating race. NBC will broadcast his historic feat (by time delay) tonight. Not to brag (again), but Mr. Davis is a Chicago native and news reports say he donned a Chicago White Sox cap in his victory lap :).
"Since I was a kid I joked around saying one day I am going to win the 1,000. Now it's happened," Mr. Davis told reporters. "A childhood dream comes true." Asked how he felt to be the first black man to win a gold medal, he said: "I don't know. I think it's cool to have a gold medal regardless of the color. Although African-Americans choose basketball or some other sport I chose a different route. I wake up in the morning and work as hard as anybody."
You may recall that Mr. Davis has come under much criticism for skipping the team pursuit event a couple of days ago — especially when the Team USA was knocked out in the quarterfinals, doomed by a slower skater. However, Mr. Davis, world record holder in the 1,000-meter event, wanted to focus on his strongest event and has been avoiding the media and the rest of the team.
I was trippin' this morning at Olympics coverage. When asked by NBC if Shani Davis was the clear favorite to win the race, Chad Hedrick - who only skated the 1000-meter event five times in his life, prior to the Olympics - touted Joey Cheeks (who just got the silver medal; Mr. Hedrick was in 6th place). Excuse me, but when someone is the world recordholder in an event, has dominated the event in your sport's World Cup series, and hasn't lost a race this season at the distance, he is clear favorite and own up to it.
When asked after the 1,000-meter event if he was happy for Mr. Davis (a rival off the ice), Mr. Hedrick replied:"I'm happy for Joey." Foul. This is white folks not wanting to give a brother due props for his merit in something (note: Mr. Davis got racially charged messages to his personal Web site, "people saying they hoped I would fall, break my leg, using the n-word" after he declined to join the team pursuit event). Or rather, white Americans because apparently the mostly Dutch crowd packed into the arena (Mr. Davis is famous in Holland, where speedskating is very popular) went crazy.
Shani Davis: Olympic Champion
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6 comments:
That's funny, I'm one of those evil "white" Americans you refer to. I'm glad for Shani in his victory and all that, but I'm also a little disappointed that he dropped out of the team pursuit with 4 days notice.
That interview afterwards on NBC with Shani was weird, so I looked forward to the morning paper to see if I could get some background. Now I understand the sour grapes and think the flack he is receiving about team pursuit is silly. He only had a week notice to join team pursuit! Of course he focused on his prime objective! Arriving at the Olympics would be a remarkably tough road in itself, I can only guess what he has endured being a colored speedskater. At the same time I want to drop the subject of color altogether. Color him gold and Congratulations, Shani!! -Middle aged white guy
Middle Aged White Guy;
I'm one too and you couldn't have said it better, "Color him gold and Congratulations, Shani!!"
Given all this man must have endured to get the gold, who can blame him for attending to his original goal. To my mind, this makes him a role model.
Congrats Shani on winning the Gold and Silver. To overcome both the competition AND his own team team leaders put downs without support from US skating is quite an accomplishment. So Chad is upset that Shani didnt skate in the team pursuit. Chad, if the pursuit was so important to you, why didnt you not skate in your race so you would have been able to skate faster in the pursuit? Shani has worked for most of his life for this Gold and I for one, am very proud of him.
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