By Perry Green
AFRO Sports Editor
Shani Davis dominated the 10,000 meter race with a first place time of 13 minutes, 29.01 seconds.(AP Photo)
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(October 26, 2009) - Olympic Gold medalist Shani Davis recently proved he’s still perhaps the fastest professional skater in the nation as he blew away most of the competition at the U.S. speedskating trials on Oct. 25 in Milwaukee.
Davis dominated in the 10,000 meter race with a first place time of 13 minutes, 29.01 seconds, which was easily the fastest time ever on a sea-level track.
His brilliant performance in the 10,000, along with his dominance in the 500, 1, 500 and 5,000 qualified him to participate with the U.S. team in all five individual events at the World Cup in Europe scheduled in November, according to the Associated Press.
But most of the speedskating world wasn’t surprised by the individual performances of the 27-year-old Chicago native, who’s in position to break Olympic legend Eric Heiden’s winter record of five gold medals earned.
They were, however, perhaps a tad stunned that Davis accepted his nomination to be a part of the team pursuit race at the Winter Olympics.
According to AP, Davis had refused to perform in the team pursuit event during the 2006 Winter Olympics because he thought the event would hurt his individual races.
He went on to become the first African-American athlete to win an individual gold medal at the Winter Games, but his decision not to race in the team pursuit event triggered a publicized feud with fellow American speedskater Chad Hedrick. Without Davis, the Americans had to race the ’06 team pursuit event with a slower skater and were eliminated; a fault Hedrick blamed on Davis.
But AP reports this time around, the team pursuit will be the final event of the speedskating program and wouldn’t interfere with Davis’ shot at Heiden’s record. Davis will wait and see how he performs at the Word Cup before he makes his final decision on the team event or any individual event.
“I could do every event but a lot of it has to do with scheduling,” Davis told AP. “I wouldn’t like to water down the potency of my skating just trying to go out there and skate everything. There are some specialists out there and you’ve got to bring your ‘A’ game for those guys. If I’m watering myself down skating 5,000s and 10,000s and 500s, then that’s not so good for me.”
Regardless if Davis races the team pursuit or not, his feud with Hedrick appears to be diffused, and the two even raced together in a meet in the Netherlands last year.
Hedrick—who placed sixth in the 10,000 at Milwaukee, 19 seconds behind Davis—told AP he’d love to team up with Davis in Vancouver.
“I would love for him to be a part of it,” Hendrick said. “If we can get it together, we’d be the team to beat.”