Talk:Shani Davis

message: How the bleep bleep bleep can an article putatively about an athlete include a section on the 2006 Olympics that includes ONLY a controversy section and fails COMPLETELY to menition the athlete's performance in the games.  This is abysmal encyclopedia writing regardless of the outcome, but when the athlete won a gold medal and a sliver medal it is execrable!  I have added a blurb regarding the gold medal win that could certainly use expansion and detail from someone more knowledgeable.   —Preceding unsigned comment added by 143.239.96.226 (talk) 13:06, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: 2006 Olympics

message: Full details:
*http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10487187/
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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...
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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.
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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.  
Lame article written as if informed by knowing Davis personally and by actual knowledge of speed skating- both of which are utterly absent.
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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)
thread_title: Old, unsectioned comments

message: A lot of the current information in the article was very similar to this article. I reverted to a previous version before user  added content. ErikNY 04:08, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Copyvio?

message: 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)
replies: text: This article 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)
thread_title: First

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  If the contempt for this man is not racist then  

message: 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)
thread_title:  Decision not to participate in team pursuit not what it appears? 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Shani's mother did not write that editorial on his page 

message: Eric Heiden's anaylysis at yahoo sports where he writes, "Davis did the right thing by not skating in the pursuit."
http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/torino2006/speed_skating/news?slug=eh-heiden021906&prov=yhoo&type=lgns
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)
replies: text: Yesterday, tennis. Today, speed skating. Tomorrow - water polo! ;) Rattlerbrat 02:58, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Davis did the right thing.  

message: 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)
thread_title: New section: Childhood

message: 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)
thread_title: New section: Junior Level Competition

message: "Davis expects to finish his undergraduate studies in Summer 2009 at Northern Michigan University in Marquette."
So... did he? Propaniac (talk) 02:32, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Graduation 

message: - Hey, What's the deal with the apparent animosity between Shani and Stephen Colbert? First Shani is calling him a "jerk" and now Stephen is going and heckling him during practice, or at least Colbert said he did... Knowing him, he could be making it up, or not. Anyway. I was trying to figure out more about this simply out of curiousity, and I didn't see anything here. 
- Does it have something to do with the independant sponsorship vs. Stephens partial sponsorship of others on the Speed Skating team (I am not familiar with the details of his sponsorship, or stephen's contributions for that matter)? Is it a difference or political opinion? Does Shani just not get Stephen's brand of humor? I'm curious as all hell about this, some speed skaters have had him sign body parts for good luck or wear the Colbert Nation "C" as an integral part of their uniform, and they seemingly love him. It is almost the polar opposite between Stephen and Shani... why?
- I know this is a very minor thing, but it's something I don't fully understand so I looked here and didn't find anything. Anyone know more? I figured if anyone knew it would be some of the hardcore supporters, or at least people who know more about this man than I do. People who know enough to write a wiki entry on him anyway. Thanks all.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.212.63.74 (talk) 04:24, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Considering that the Colbert Report sponsored the 2010 US Olympic Speed Skating Team and yet Davis uttered this comment about Colbert, I'd definitely say it was a significant incident in his skating career, especially considering that speed skating gets less coverage in the US than many other sports. Doc Quintana (talk) 18:40, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Davis is not a part of the US Olympic Speed Skating Team and has independent sponsorship.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.126.158.50 (talk) 18:55, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

text: If its that important (and I really don't think it is) maybe we could include it under Personal Life. Or create a section labelled 'Media Appearances' and mention that Davis appeared on a segment of the Colbert Report after reportedly calling Colbert a jerk.Gomez3000adams (talk) 19:08, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Works for me. I'll put it in the personal life section. Doc Quintana (talk) 01:01, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Davis vs. Colbert... Whats up with that? 

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