Shani Davis has not looked at the 2006 Winter Olympic schedule to find out whether his probable dream could turn into a logistical nightmare.
The speedskater from Chicago wants to become the first to make the Olympics in the sport’s two disciplines: short track, which resembles a track event with multiple contestants in heats and finals where the first to the finish wins; and long track, where the skaters compete in pairs but are trying to beat the clock.
Davis’ attention is on this week’s national short-track championships at the Pettit Center in Milwaukee. It is the qualifying meet for the short-track worlds March 11-13 in Beijing.
He already has competed in two of the three long-track world championship meets this season, winning the all-around title and finishing seventh in the sprint. Davis has decided not to defend his 1,500-meter title at the single-distance worlds to concentrate on short track the rest of the season.
“As far as making the Olympic team in both, it’s highly possible,” Davis said. “As far as competing in both when I’m over there, I don’t know how that will operate or things like how far the rinks are from each other.”
The competition rinks in Turin, Italy, are only a 10-minute walk apart. Yet Davis would find himself running from one to the other on the two days when short-track events begin less than an hour after men’s long-track races.
Complicated? Definitely, and that doesn’t even factor in fatigue, because Davis has become so good in long track he could make the Olympic team in all five individual events, where the U.S. will have four entrants per race, and the team pursuit.
In short track, where the U.S. may get only two entrants in the individual events, Davis seems certain to be on the relay and has a decent chance for two individual races.
Davis is this season’s fastest U.S. long-track skater in the 1,000 and 1,500 meters; second in the 5,000 and 10,000; and fifth in the 500. In short track, he is second-ranked in the 1,000 and No. 3 in the 1,500.
“This season has been picture perfect,” Davis said.
He made sure it could look that way after being haunted by images of finishing second to teammate Chad Hedrick at last season’s world all-around meet. The difference, Davis knew, was the nearly four seconds he had lost to Hedrick in the 5,000 meters and the 14 seconds in the 10,000.
“The 5,000 and 10,000 are a lot mental,” Davis said. “I thought about how horrible it felt to be second, and the whole summer I trained to be able to do better.
“When I started getting tired in training or started to slack off, I would tell myself, `You don’t deserve to be No. 1 if you are going to take it easy.”‘
At this year’s world meet, Davis protected the advantage he built over Hedrick in the two shorter races by finishing fewer than three seconds behind in the 5,000 and 10,000.
Bodes well
A third and two fourths have put Bode Miller back in command of the World Cup skiing overall standings, increasing his lead to 191 points over Austria’s Benny Raich with eight races left. Miller’s once huge margin had shrunk to 95 points before two downhills and super-giant slalom in Garmisch, Germany, over the weekend.
With two races left in each discipline, Miller should be nearly impossible to catch, even if he continues to wash out in slalom. Miller is first in the season standings for super-G and giant slalom and second in downhill; Raich stands fifth, fourth and 31st, respectively, in those events. Raich leads the slalom standings, in which Miller is 17th, but he has made it to the finish of the second run in only one of seven World Cup slaloms this season. Miller won that race.
