Talk:Shani Davis
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[edit] Old, unsectioned comments
Full details:
The results in the 2006 Olympics will speak louder than any opinions offered in forums or in the press. Let's wait and se before judging...
I don't think that is a very nice picture of Shani that has been added.
Shani Davis is the one bright spot in this crappy Olympics for Team USA. He won gold and that's just amazing. As far as him not competing in the team sport, We don't know what his reasons are for doing that so to call him selfish is unwarranted. To be honest if he was white, you guys wouldn't be complaining or calling him names. Sometimes people can be so racist and it shows.
It is misleading to claim that Davis did not compete in the pursuit out of jealosy for having been beaten in the 5000. His decision not to race in the pursuit was announced and known well before the 5000. [1]
Lame article written as if informed by knowing Davis personally and by actual knowledge of speed skating- both of which are utterly absent.
Hedrick's finish in the 1000m should not be described as "a distant" sixth. He was only 0.13 seconds off bronze medal place and finished ahead of a number of world-class speedskaters more experienced in the event than he was. Big Smooth 22:22, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
Driven: if a white person focused on winning an event for which he had spent the majority of his life training. Selfish: if a black person focused on winning an event for which he had spent the majority of his life training.
The fact of the matter is that the truly selfish person here was Chad Hedrick because he wanted to tie Heiden's record and needed other people to help him. Guess what, maybe this so called "Paris Hilton of speedskating" didn't earn other people's respect enough to deserve their help. Chad Hedrick's behavior makes me ashamed to be an American.
[edit] Copyvio?
A lot of the current information in the article was very similar to this article. I reverted to a previous version before user 66.108.249.176 (talk · contribs) added content. ErikNY 04:08, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
[edit] First
Is he the first African-American to win individual Winter Olympic gold or the first "of African descent" as the 2006 Winter Olympics article says? Have any Africans ever won? Rmhermen 04:12, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
I'm also curious about this. The 2006 Olympics page says first black athlete to win an individual medal. This page says he was the first African American and the first black athlete to win an individual medal, both on the same page. I think that it is more impressive to be the first black ever, so I think political correctness should be overlooked this time.--jcarkeys 16:02, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
- This article[2] claims that no African, Middle Eastern, Southeast Asian, South or Latin American country has ever one a Winter medal so no Africans. Rmhermen 21:53, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
Is there a page of firsts for the Olympics? If so, then there should be a link from the "first black athlete to win an individual gold in Winter Games history" line. This begs the question for me, who was/were the first black athletes to win for team golds?
[edit] Shani's Behavior and choices
Personally, I think the commentators for Torino 2006 were being racist against Shani. Whenever they referred to Chad Hedrick, they never mentioned his family's marital status or what kind of neighborhood he's from. But with Shani, they were compelled to include words like "poor" and "crime-infested nieghborhood". Also, they gladly let us know about his mom's marital status, and his neighborhood's wealth and crime rate ... to me, that's just racist. Also, many Wikipedians said that Shani was acting crappy by not running with the U.S. team -- so what?? If you were in a group of people who didn't like you because you were of a different race, wouldn't you not want to share your medal with them? On the Olmpics, Chad clearly did not want Shani to throw him off 1st place. When asked about Shani's victory, Chad said:
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- So, clearly Shani wouldn't want to share Olympic gold with them! And the short interview he gave wasn't because of stubbornness ... those white commentators were mean to him; they deserved those short, little answers. Janet 20:55, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
- Ah, but what is the cause, and what is the effect? News articles suggest that Davis's individualistic attitude causes the rather negative view on his character and not the inverse. --Scottie theNerd 16:45, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
- Or perhaps the commentators were just running more of their ceaseless "rag-to-riches" or "human interest" stories that keep American TV from actually showing very much sports during the Olympics. (Although this year is better than the last couple, I am still glad I can watch Canadian broadcasts.) Rmhermen 21:56, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
- From a dutchman's view, it seems very likely that Davis' behavior vs the US networks was a direct consequence of the US media behavior. He has given several interviews to the NOS over the last few days, and there was little remarkable about it (Interviews with athletes are seldom eloquent). Part of it may be the fact that he has a dutch sponsor though. Dutch television seems to be of the opinion that the US are purposefully enlarging the conflict because it makes for more interesting news then the skating itself. While there was some hostility, from the interviews on TV here (With Cheek, Heddrick and Davis) it mostly seems that the skaters consider it a minor issue and would rather focus on skating.SanderJK 23:46, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
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- I'm going to make a category called Black Winter Olympics medalists, or probably Black Winter Olympians. I didn't realize we've had four medal winners - Shani Davis, Vonetta Flowers, Debi Thomas (the first) and Afro-Canadian Jarome Iginla.
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[edit] African American?
If he's the first black athlete to win an individual event at the winter olympics, isn't it misleading to say he's the first African American to do this feat? I was confused. I wasn't sure if black athletes from elsewhere had done the same or not.
[edit] If the contempt for this man is not racist then
It is NOT by force that he must compete in the pursuit. People are trying to subjugate this man. Let him be - he does not want to be in the pursuit team. Tell me how many useless pursuits did he participate in BEFORE Torino. If the contempt for this man is not racist then I am the President of the United States.
- Firstly, this isn't the place to argue. Secondly, you provide no evidence of racism. What you have put forward is the case of Davis being victimised by the media and probably other members of the USA team. Contempt does not always come from racism. --Scottie theNerd 16:47, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
- You're right. But in this case, it is. All the dogpiling and bashing the young black skater isn't just a coincedence.Rattlerbrat 02:56, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Decision not to participate in team pursuit not what it appears?
I read some quotes in a news article that Shani Davis actually decided not to participate in the team pursuit at least partially because he remembered how it felt to have qualified for the 2002 Olympics and not getting to skate, and so he himself did not want to bump someone else off the team pursuit roster who had been chosen specifically to skate for it.
I've been trying to find that article again online but I can't. The closest one I can find is this one:
- "Davis remembers his Olympic experience in 2002, when he was in the short-track relay pool but didn't get to skate. He said he wanted to give Mull and Leveille, who otherwise wouldn't skate in Turin, a chance to compete ..."I didn't want to take anything away from my teammates," Davis said. "I want to give them a fair shot and a chance."
The one I read actually quoted him saying he remembered how he felt when he didn't get to skate in 2002 and didn't want to do that to someone else. Can anyone else corroborate this or help find that article? Yishan 00:49, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, at first I thought it was kind of weird that Shani Davis decided not to participate in the team pursuit. But the more I read about it, the more I felt that he did the right thing. I felt that since Davis had trained and focused on his individual events, those should be his primary obligation. I've also felt that Chad Hedrick hasn't shown himself to be a good sportsman by refusing to congratulate Davis on his win.
Eric Heiden wrote a column that also gets into the issue of Shani Davis not being able to skate in 2002, and Heiden feels that Davis made the right decision by not being in the team pursuit.
I originally put this entry into the previous topic section, but I've moved it down to this section here, where the topic is more relevant:
Heiden February 19 2006 column
Here is the relevant excerpt:
Davis did the right thing by not skating in the pursuit. His goal was to skate the 1,000 and the 1,500. He was put in a unique position with team pursuit. It's a new race for the Olympics and the format was something that none of the teams were quite sure how to deal with. With four races over a two-day period, nobody knew how it was going to affect them in their later races. I talked with Germany's Anni Friesinger, who is one of the best in the world, and she told me that two days after she had skated three of the four pursuits she was still very tired. That may have cost her the gold medal Sunday in the 1,000, one of her best distances. She ended up third. Looking back, she may regret skating so much in pursuit.
Another thing that people may be overlooking is that, in Salt Lake City, Davis was a member of the short-track team for a relay race, but didn't get to skate. So he's been in that situation before, where he didn't get to participate and he didn't want to do that to somebody here. It's tough to fault him for what he did. He may look selfish, but he was in that same position four years ago and didn't want anyone else to be in that position here.
-JK2000 22 February 2006
Shani Davis was never supposed to skate in the team pursuit and never, not once, did he practice this event with the team. he didn't even train in the same facility! NBC, the US speedskating organization and his teammates pretty much made this up. They asked him after the deadline in December, but he hadn't even considered it, choosing to focus on the events he was supposed to participate in. It should be noted that although the media's portrayal of Shani could be considered tinged with racism (he is always portrayed in a negative light to some degree), much of the race issue stems from his family, his mother most vocally. If you go to shanidavis.org, you have to sign up to comment. If you have an opinion contrary to "Team Davis" or step out and criticize their policy of dragging Shani's image into a negative one, they remove your rights and delete your posts. Most obviously, when you go to shanidavis.org (his official website) you are greeted by an editorial, written by a family member (probably his mother) that, as of today, states "Eff NBC and the media". Truly the stuff of champions! I tried to post that they COULD choose to accentuate the positive of Shani's story and stop effectively tarnishing his legacy, only to be called a racist, have my post deleted, and my login revoked. Additionally, "Team Davis" still thinks that the only thing that matters is Shani's performance. Oddly, "Team Davis", in an attempt to protect Shani and help him, are hurting his career and making people very wary of him. They accuse the USOC and the US Speedskating Organization of racism, ignorance, and dishonesty. Frankly, they are scaring away sponsorship deals and endorsements, but are too stubborn and foolish to hire someone to help his ailing PR. I agree that he has been shown in a bad light, but I also think it's obvious that "Team Davis" is not helping. It's time for his mother and the rest of "Team Davis" to take a back seat to a PR person before it is too late, the money dissapears, the endoresement deals and sponsorship money goes away, and his reputation is tarnished. The last thing Shani needs is to be remembered as the kid who won some medals and gave the finger to everyone. No one remembers Jackie Robinson for beign rude and accusing everyone of being a racist. "Team Davis" needs to stop ruining Shani's career before it is too late.
[edit] NO COMMENTS ON CHAD HEDRICKS PAGE
It's interesting how there is one comment on Chad Hedricks page. Why don't you guys go over there and criticize him? He seems like the real loser here to me and a sore loser at that.
[edit] Shani's mother did not write that editorial on his page
I just wanted to let you guys know that neither Shani Davis nor anyone in his family wrote that editorial on his site. It's a comment from a blogger. Stop trying to make Davis look like the bad guy in all of this mess.
HE chose not to compete way before the 2006 Olympics. Hedricks is the real jerk by making it such an issue. Leave Davis alone it was his decision and no one has a right to say anything abou it.
- You're wrong. It was indeed Davis' mother who wrote the editorial in question. Do you think they let anonymous bloggers post stuff to the front page of their site? The editorial was signed "daviscil", which is Mrs. Davis' site username. Jim Tour 06:46, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Davis did the right thing.
Eric Heiden's anaylysis at yahoo sports where he writes, "Davis did the right thing by not skating in the pursuit."
TURIN, Italy – If you're ever going to be on the edge of your seat watching a speedskating race, Tuesday's 1,500 meters will be the one. Everybody here is looking forward to what should be the premier race in this Olympics.
The metric mile is a magical race where the two realms of long-track speedskating come together: good long-distance sprinters against good short-distance, all-around skaters. And, it will pit Shani Davis against Chad Hedrick, the two best skaters in the world at this distance. Hedrick is the world record holder in the 1,500 (1:42.78), and Davis – the 2005 world all-around champion – is clearly the second-best. This race will be closer than Saturday's 1,000, when Davis won gold and Hedrick finished sixth, .56 seconds off the pace.
Hedrick has already won gold here in the 5,000, but won't be able to complete his quest to win five gold medals, partially because the U.S. team did not advance beyond the quarterfinals in the team pursuit. That brings us to why a lot of people might be interested in the 1,500. Davis has been criticized for not racing in the pursuit to concentrate on the 1,000 and some feel that cost the U.S. a legitimate shot at a gold medal. It certainly has caused some tension between Davis and Hedrick.
The tension between them heated up after the 1,000. Hedrick was disappointed in finishing sixth, but winning certainly was a long shot for him. He's a competitor and doesn't like to share the limelight, and he felt let down by Davis because of the team pursuit situation. So, the last guy Hedrick wanted to lose to was Davis. The press is probably making more of their relationship – or lack of one – than there really is. Hedrick just doesn't like to lose. If he gets second place in a race, he considers himself the first loser.
Davis did the right thing by not skating in the pursuit. His goal was to skate the 1,000 and the 1,500. He was put in a unique position with team pursuit. It's a new race for the Olympics and the format was something that none of the teams were quite sure how to deal with. With four races over a two-day period, nobody knew how it was going to affect them in their later races. I talked with Germany's Anni Friesinger, who is one of the best in the world, and she told me that two days after she had skated three of the four pursuits she was still very tired. That may have cost her the gold medal Sunday in the 1,000, one of her best distances. She ended up third. Looking back, she may regret skating so much in pursuit.
Another thing that people may be overlooking is that, in Salt Lake City, Davis was a member of the short-track team for a relay race, but didn't get to skate. So he's been in that situation before, where he didn't get to participate and he didn't want to do that to somebody here. It's tough to fault him for what he did. He may look selfish, but he was in that same position four years ago and didn't want anyone else to be in that position here.
For Hedrick, a confident guy and strong competitor who thrives on rivalries, the situation with Davis can actually be helpful. Davis, on the other hand, prefers to block out all controversy and focus fully on his races. If I were a psychologist, I'd enjoy trying to interpret what's going on here.
I think the controversy between them is having very little effect on the other U.S. skaters. Davis has meshed very well with the team. Some people may be concerned that because he's black the controversy is racially motivated, but I don't think anyone on the team looks at him in a different way. The coaches, however, may be concerned because they don't want things to blow up because of the press and have this spill over to the other athletes.
In spite of all this – or, perhaps, because of it – we should see a fantastic race Tuesday.
Another storyline is the possibility that, with wins in the 1,500 and 10,000, the U.S. would win every individual long track race here, something that hasn't happened since 1980. That and the overall U.S. dominance have the Dutch skaters pretty frustrated. They pride themselves on being a speedskating nation with a lot of tradition, and they don't know what to do to break the success of the Americans here.
There's a definite shift in the balance of power and the Dutch are going crazy.
- If anyone did the wrong thing I think it was NBC and maybe the press in general. (And there is relevance here, wait for it) It sounds like there was some bickering anyway, but the way they handled it was an almost gleeful attempt to try to provoke some blow up. I think they remember that some of the best ratings a Winter Olympics ever got was the Harding/Kerrigan fight so they kept trying to create or inflame any fight they could find. Also the constant "your black." Although it is historic they came very perilously close to sounding like "wow black people can skate, what will happen next?" There was an African-American figure skater who won bronze in like the eighties. Although it's very different then speed skating it's not like black people skating is akin to a Mayan winning the Stanley Cup. Anyway I mention this because I wonder if criticism of the press on this has been mentioned in sources on the games.--T. Anthony 07:11, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
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- Yesterday, tennis. Today, speed skating. Tomorrow - water polo! ;) Rattlerbrat 02:58, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
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- Sorry Rattlerbrat, that's where the line is drawn. Well, maybe not water polo, but definitely Olympic swimming. Now understand, I'm awful fond of black folks. I may be even fonder of them than of white folks. But bone density is bone density, and the physics of given densities in submersion are what they are. Moving about through the air with feet on the earth as we normally do, blacks' greater average muscle mass more than compensates for higher bone density. In the water that compensation falls short. If there's even one "black" olympic medal winner in swimming in the next 50 years who is not actually 1/2+ "caucasian" and/or "sinoid", I'll eat my speedo. Jim Tour 05:23, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
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- I was a college swimmer/diver, and my school (Florida A&M University) had a water polo team. So...yeah. Rattlerbrat 05:41, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
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[edit] Deletions/additions/new section: Intro
Finally an article about Shani Davis without the racist slant. Thank you! That idiot that wrote that article during the Olympics needs to self-examine unless he is aware that he is racist already, in which case no examination needed.
Shani Davis (born August 13, 1982 in Chicago, Illinois) is an African-American speedskater...
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- Deleted the "African" in "African-American" because Shani's race is mentioned in the next sentence (and will be mentioned throughout this article); plus, I wanted to emphasize that he's an American athlete. BlahblahblahweareallAmericansyaddayadda.
who specializes in both short track and long track speedskating...
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- I'm changing "specializes" to "competes". Any pro athlete can claim that they "specialize" in his/her sport - that's why they're professionals. I'm going to move the '02/'03 accomplishments with the background.
...and hails as the first Black athlete
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- Deleted for misuse of the word "hail". If you're not talking about ice falling from the sky, to "hail" is to come from. For example, Shani hails from Chicago, IL. Or it can be used as a greeting, or a call (to hail a cab).
...to win an individual gold medal (in addition to a silver medal) at the 2006 Olympic Games.
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IIRC, Davis is the first Black athlete to indy-medal at ANY Winter Olympics, not just the 2006 games. It should also be noted that he is only the 2nd black athlete to win a medal at the Winter Games, period. Rewritten to read: At the 2006 Winter Olympics, Davis became the first black athlete to medal in an individual sport (gold, 1,000 m and silver, 1,500), and only the second black athlete to earn a medal at the Winter Games.Never mind, you were right! Rattlerbrat 05:50, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
Okay, I've worked on as much as I can and it's almost 7:00 in the morning, so I'm going to just go over the things I remember that I changed. This is going to be alllll out of order.
Davis is almost completely alienated from the American speed skating program. He broke with the American speed skating program when United States Speedskating (USS) attempted to block him from wearing the logo of his personal sponsors on his uniform, insisting he wear only the logos of the team sponsors. Davis refused to comply with this decision, and the association withdrew his funding.
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- I've moved the USS contract violation information to the "Turning Pro" section. I found a couple of extra quotes to expand on that section.
He is today almost completely separated from the American speed skating system... -
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- Deleted, because if Shani is skating for America, he's not seperated from the system. Maybe from the people in the system, but not the system itself. Plus, the U.S. Long Track Team has no rules stating that Shani has to train in Colorado, so his self-exile isn't that big a deal.
and for the last several years he has lived and trained in Calgary, Canada, in part because it was the only place he could seriously train for both short-track and long-track events.
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- Moved the part about the tracks to the "fixed?" section. It seems that Davis moved to Calgary either right before or right after the arbitration, but it was definitely in 2002. In the intro, I mentioned that Davis trains in Calgary.
For a time he was the next door neighbour of Canadian star Jeremy Wotherspoon.
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- moved to Trivia section, since they're no longer neighbors, I assume, but it makes for a cool little nuggest of info.
I took out most of the links; they're mostly columns, not web sites, and that leans towards POV. If we're going to link the articles that say Shani did the right thing, then we have to include just as many that called him a selfish, unpatriotic ass. I also took out most of your references to Hadwick prior to the 2006 Games. They weren't "fighting" then - at least not publicly - so I don't see the point in mentioning that Davis barely edged him out in this/that/other race. Also took out your statements that Hedrick "only" came in 6th, 7th, whatever. Leans toward POV.
I know i need to add the information about Double Davis back in, and I'll probably just have a "criticism" section, where we can pile in all the "Davis eats kittens and loves terrorism" blather. But it's almost 8:00 in the morning, and I NEED to go to bed!Rattlerbrat 12:58, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
- The links were there as references - that should have been better stated. So I'm putting them back in. Regardless, good work! Sam Vimes 13:02, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
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- References for what? To praise how wonderful Shani is and how he was right to not skate? That's not right. Either put up some links about how he's the worst guy in the world or I'm taking them back out. I didn't stay up for 7 hours doing research so this article can get a NPOV tag on it. Rattlerbrat
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- Sorry. The point is that they were references for quotes made in the article, such as:
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- Davis was bitterly criticized by teammate Chad Hedrick and much of the press for being "selfish" and not being a "team player" after Davis declined the opportunity to skate in the three-person team pursuit. Davis had never practiced or signed on with the U.S. pursuit team, and was asked to join it only a week before the event. Hedrick claimed Davis's presence would have meant "a pretty sure gold," and found Davis's absence "tough to swallow." Hedrick's comments unleashed a furious controversy in the media, and anonymous writers called Davis "traitor" and "nigger" on Davis's website.
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- which currently stands unreferenced. I think most of those claims were in the weblinked articles - it doesn't mean we're endorsing their viewpoint, but that we're saying "some people said this and here are the weblinks to prove they did". Sam Vimes 13:14, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
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- You gonna let me finish my work? 'Pree-shate it. Rattlerbrat 13:18, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
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[edit] New section: Childhood
First, I added some of his back story; how he got started skating and where, his move, his training and so on. I think that's a good way to bring his mother Cherie into the picture, since we'll be seeing a LOT of her with the introduction of "Team Davis". Does anyone know about the split of his parents? His father appears to be very much in Shani's life, and I want to include that as well.
I know I left out the origin of his name and his high school athletics, but I'm thinking we should have a "trivia" section to add the little facts that we can't really expound on. Rattlerbrat 06:17, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] New section: Junior Level Competition
Pretty much detailing his life from 16 to about 22, and lists some of his junior level titles. I think we have a template to list all of his notable records/races, so we'll list all of them there. I need to correct some information about the move to Calgary, because i think I have something wrong. Rattlerbrat 06:45, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] New section: Turning Pro
I didn't list ALL of Shani's records - if I did, I'd be here all night! But I listed the most notable ones, along with information about the USS contract war. Rattlerbrat