Davis, Shani

▪ 2007

      On Feb. 18, 2006, speed skater Shani Davis blasted through a 26.60-sec final lap to win the men's 1,000-m long-track final at the Winter Olympic Games in Turin, Italy. With his victory Davis became the first black to win an individual Winter Olympic gold medal. Three days later he also won the silver medal in the 1,500 m. Davis's success seemed to validate his strategy of passing up the team-pursuit race to focus on the individual events. When the U.S. men were eliminated in a team-pursuit quarterfinal three days before the 1,000 m, Davis's critics, notably team captain Chad Hedrick, portrayed him as unpatriotic and selfish, though Davis had neither entered nor practiced a team-pursuit race since 2002. The controversy drew media attention throughout the Olympics, but Davis later downplayed the disagreement.

      Davis was born in Chicago on Aug. 13, 1982. His father picked the name Shani from a Swahili dictionary (the English translation is a mixture of “light” and “weight”). Davis learned to roller-skate at age two and a year later was skating so fast that he had to be slowed by the rink's skate guards. He switched to ice skating at age six, a few months before his mother enrolled him in a local speed-skating club. Soon thereafter, Davis began to win regional competitions. At 17 he moved to Marquette, Mich., to improve his training opportunity. Though Davis was tall (1.88 m [6 ft 2 in]) for a speed skater, his talent quickly overcame this apparent disadvantage in a sport populated by smaller men, and he qualified for both the U.S. short-track and long-track teams for the 1999 junior world championships.

      Controversy first marked Davis's career in 2002 when he won a 1,500-m heat to qualify for the U.S. short-track team for the Salt Lake City (Utah) Winter Olympics. Rumours arose that two skaters who had already secured places on the team had intentionally thrown the race so that Davis would win. A fourth skater filed a formal complaint against Davis, who got a favourable ruling from an arbitration panel. Ironically, Davis was assigned an alternate slot shortly after he reached Salt Lake and thus did not compete.

      In February 2005 Davis became the fourth American and the first black to win the world all-around speed-skating championship. He repeated his all-around title in March 2006, posting a world-record overall score of 145.742 points. He also broke Hedrick's world record for the 1,500 m, adding that record to the 1,000-m record he had set in November 2005.

Ron Reid

* * *

▪ American athlete

born Aug. 13, 1982, Chicago, Ill., U.S.

 

 American speed skater, who was the first black athlete to win an individual Winter Olympics gold medal.

      Davis learned to roller-skate at age two and a year later was skating so fast that he had to be slowed by the rink's skate guards. He switched to ice skating at age six, a few months before his mother enrolled him in a local speed-skating club. Soon thereafter, Davis began to win regional competitions. At 17 he moved to Marquette, Mich., to improve his training opportunities. Although Davis was tall (1.88 metres [6 feet 2 inches]) for a speed skater, his talent quickly overcame this apparent disadvantage, and he qualified for both the U.S. short-track and long-track teams for the 1999 junior world championships.

      In 2005 Davis became the fourth American and the first black to win the world all-around speed-skating championship. On Feb. 18, 2006, he skated a 26.60-sec final lap to win the men's 1,000-metre long-track final at the Winter Olympic Games in Turin, Italy. Three days later he captured the silver medal in the 1,500 metre. Davis's success continued at the 2006 world speed-skating championships, where he won a second all-around title, posting a world-record overall score of 145.742 points. He also broke the world record for the 1,500 metre, adding that to the 1,000-metre record he had set in November 2005. In 2009 Davis won the world speed-skating sprint championship, becoming the second man (after Eric Heiden (Heiden, Eric)) to win both all-around and sprint world championships over the course of his career.

* * *