Shani Davis: He’s Fire on Ice–and Off It

Shani Davis has always set his own course. While most boys in his South Side Chicago neighborhood were trying to shoot hoops like Michael Jordan, Davis was lacing on skates and speeding around an ice rink. His buddies teased him for dedicating himself to a sport that seemed so white. “A lot of kids made fun of [speed skating] because it wasn’t a thing you could do to get rich,” says Davis.

Speed skating is still largely a white sport, and he has yet to get rich from it, but Davis, 23, the first African American to qualify for a U.S. Olympic speed-skating team, is now a gold-medal favorite for the 1,000-m and 1,500-m races at the Games in Torino. He’s also one of the sport’s most controversial figures, feuding openly with its governing body, U.S. Speedskating.

The dispute centers on the federation’s decision to reduce its funding for Davis’ training because he wears on his uniform the logo of Netherlands-based bank DSB, which is not an official U.S. speed-skating team sponsor. “Speed skating has lots of potential to be a big sport,” says Davis–who, although he is relatively unknown in the U.S., has a broader following in Europe, where the sport is popular. The U.S. Speedskating officials, he complains, “don’t want to grow in a way where they have five or six Shani Davises.” The organization’s officials say they are disappointed with the comments but will support Davis at the Olympics.

Davis first went on the ice when he was 6. His mother Cherie worked as a secretary for a lawyer who happened to be a speed-skating official and suggested that her son try the sport. Within two years, Davis was winning regional titles. Now 6 ft. 2 in., he propels himself with long, powerful strides to the forefront of the long-track events, in which two skaters race next to each other but against the clock. This winter, defying speed-skating convention, Davis tried to become the first skater to compete in both long-track and the more roller-derby-like short-track events at the same Olympics, but he fell just short of making the short-track team.

The standoff between Davis and the skating establishment widened a bit in December when the skater, who had already qualified for the long-track events, skipped those trials, even after officials had rescheduled them to accommodate his short-track attempt. But there is an upside to the ongoing feud. “If people make him angry,” says Davis’ mom, “he has a tendency to really perform well.”