Sentiment of most Americans concerning the Winter Olympics... except for Sasha Cohen. I want to make the beast with two backs...
I liked the article in the Chron the other day that basically said neither of these guys are wrong in their personal opinions and beliefs regarding the central issue of this rift. And I think that's a fair assessment. One guy will skate every single opportunity who can for his country, while another wants to put all his energy in his best events thereby giving him and his country the best chance at a medal. Whether they're actually doing it for their country (no matter what Hedrick says) who knows. But neither is really wrong in this whole thing. That said, Hedrick is by far coming off the a**hole in this whole thing. He needs to quit whining about the team pursuit cause last time I checked he's raced 4 times and only has a gold and bronze, so that whole argument is moot now. And the whole fued seemed to simmer until the press conference. They played nice for awhile..and then toward the end Shani brought up how he congratuled Hedrick when he won his gold but Hedrick didn't respond in kind when Shani won. And that is a very valid point to make. So what's Hedrick's reply... whining yet again about the team pursuit. Shani may be a loner, his mother may be overprotective and controlling, but he has said (outside of that curt post-race interview after his 1000 win) mostly nothing but kind things in regards to Hedrick.
Hedrick's reaction was classic when Shani b****ed at him in that last press conference. He was utterly speechless for about 30 seconds, like he couldn't believe the guy brought the thing back up. He was going to do the right thing and walk away until the press egged him into giving a response. It kind of sucks because my Dad knows Chad and he's a really, really nice guy that isn't too good at handling the spot light. I think the thing that really pissed him off was that he was the captain of the pursuit team and Davis basically waited until the last minute to decide not to participate and didn't even tell him in person, he had to hear it through the media. I guess I'm biased towards Hedrick on this one, but Davis basically cost the US team a medal in the pursuit...someone mention the days when it was war with Russion in the Olympics...I'm pretty sure in those days, Davis would have been nailed by the US media for not trying for every single medal, even if it was a team medal and it was only a couple of days before the event. Anyways, I'm still going to root for Hedrick to win one more medal. The guy really is a nice guy who probably hasn't handled the situation very well. I think he's only going to get better since he hasn't been coached to technical perfection yet and is only skating on pure talent. Once he gets coached for another 4 years, he'll probably dominate the next Olympics. He's only speed skated for like 3 years.
You don't know for sure that Davis would have helped the team pursuit to get a medal. What we know for sure is when he got enough rest, he was able to win a Gold. That gold also count towards the total medal count for US. If that was Davis' plan for get the best results for him (which means best results for US), you can't really fault him on that.
No one is disputing Davis's right not to compete in the relay. By all means if he doesn't want to, then he doesn't have to. The problem is that he never told anyone that he was or wasn't going to compete. At the last second, through the media of all things, the team finds out he isn't competing. I mean when your coaches are calling you out on not being a team player, then you've got some things to work out. That's not to say the Hedrick isn't responsible for some of this as well because he certainly did his fair share to make this worse. It's just a clash of two big egos and the loser is the US speed skating team. I find it even more sad because no one is talking about Joey Cheek who besides being an incredibly nice guy by all reports, has donated all his medal money to charity and his even got several corporations to match his donations. (I think its up to a quarter of a million dollars in donations as of now) He's what we would identify as the "olympic spirit" but instead we have to hear all this garbage about Hedrick and Davis. What a tragedy.
Um Shani Davis was never on the Olympic pursuit team in the first place and had never raced team pursuit in any competition for that matter. It's not like the guy was suppose to race and at the last second dropped it. He was never going to race it, but for whatever reason the team (and Hedrick) kept pushing the issue. Im sure both of these guys are really nice, but they (especially Hedrick) need to drop the damn egos already.
I don't understand speed skating that much but I watched the team pursuit race and not even Chad Hedrick passed the finish line in time to beat the Italians. From what they were describing the official time is recorded when the last skater on the team crosses so even if Shani Davis had skated the US team still would've lost since none of their skaters crossed in time. In that case why still be so sore about it if the US would've lost whether Shani Davis skated or not?
I don't care how old she is if she still hasn't developed. Most of the men's team probably has more cleavage than her. I enjoy her skating but she needs to eat something.
Eh, I'm rail thin, so skinny girls are my thing. Besides, look at that flexibility! I don't care who you are, that's hot
No member of the team had raced in the team pursuit until the Olympics, it was a new event. Like I said earlier, the team had a problem with the way Davis handled the situation, not with him not racing. He'd had since November to make a decision, yet he didn't tell the team he wouldn't participate until a few days before the event started.
Well maybe I missed something, but it seemed pretty clear to me when the Olympics started that Shani had no intention of racing the pursuit and that the US team kept asking just in case he might change his mind. On a brighter side, nice to see they sorta patched things up a bit, though I do believe the media has blown this issue way out of proportion, and if they had left well enough alone this wouldn't have escalated. They're both great speedskaters with different goals and ideals.
On Outside the Lines a few days ago, one of the team members other than Hendrick said that he was mad because Davis told them he wasn't racing a few days before the event, instead of telling them months in advance when he was offered the spot. That's where I got my information.
Chad Hendricks is a midget. I don't know how he is listed at 5'11" on the NBC site. Jim Gray towered over him.
I have tough time buying this. Wouldn't they have kept an open dialogue with him? Perhaps firm it up by verifying with him a couple of weeks ago whether he was racing or not? Setting a deadline would be what normal people would do. Not be there or be square.