Davis Wins, Sour grapes for Hedrick

The Fourth Estate (the press) never ceases to amaze me in their never ending quest to find turmoil in the everything. Conspirators will argue that this is merely a tool of those in power to keep those without power fighting about trivial things rather than focusing on the real issues that if were given the time to focus on the real issues would lead to revolution. Individual dreams are the real issues though, The Fourth Estate, fuels them and squashes them daily.
To me individual dreams are best realized by the individual and perverted by the press. Take the Olympics, year after year we hear praise for this person or that person and their desire to win gold. Most of the games held in the Olympics (summer and winter) are individual events and you win or lose by your own effort. While the Olympians themselves may be part of a “team” and I quote this to make the point, it really isn’t a team quest in most events. The athletes march in under the banners of nations but compete as individual for the most part except in the few team events.
However, isn’t the Olympic spirit more about the effort to do your best in the sport for sports sake. The true drama which is competition. The banners of Nations are just that political lines drawn on maps which in the last two decades have changed so drastically globes are hard to sell, because they are likely to be inaccurate in a year. Those persons who represent the political end of those banners can’t even sit in the same room with each other most of the time. Yet every four years (two now) one form of Olympics(summer or winter) is held and the citizens of nations rally to compete not for political gain, but for the love of a sport or competition. And they do so for the most part in relative harmony.
Athletes may say things which seem patriotic but is patriotism what gets them out of bed to train every day. To practice, alone, when they are sick or tired or sore. No it’s individual desire to achieve. It’s the love individual achievement in the event which makes them great at what they do. A voice, desire, push, or something inside the self that makes him or her commit to activities which for most have no pay off other than self reward.
Would the athletes in the Olympics compete without the banners of nations, I think they would. Which brings me to the point about which has had me pondering . The bad mouthing of Speed Skater Shani Davis from Chad Hedrick and others in the US Olympic contingency and our press.
The press is just trying to sell advertising time and keep viewers in front of the TV to watch the 30 second blocks of time they have sold to merchandisers first and cover the event second. I know this about the press so I’m not really so surprised they are fueling the dispute between Shani and Chad just like they have with Apollo and Ahn, or being critical of Bode Millers less than gold achievements thus far or Jacobellis with her fall at the end of her snow cross event which sent her from gold to silver.
But it’s fair to ask, What is Chad really upset about? That the US didn’t win in the one team event in speed skating or that he himself won’t get the individual fame in a number of medals or to be less critical of him to achieve his dream of 5 gold medals. And to be less fair winning himself regardless the cost to another athlete namely Davis.
The U.S. coaches must not have really banked on the pursuit gold as being a real possibility or they would have built a team around their so call golden boy Chad and had this team set long before the games started instead of waiting a week before the games to approach Shani Davis, a skater named to the US team with both long and short track experience, to fill in and who did put team first over individual dreams in 2002 to watch the games and not compete in a sport he loves. It may even be reflective of other things too that the US Olympic team coaches have favorites and were willing to use Davis to push Chad forward toward the 5 gold goal and to hinder Davis, in the 1000 metre race which was to be one of the 5 gold medals for Chad.
Shani is a true athlete and dedicated to doing his best in his sport. This is testified to by his effort not in some posh rink but in the inner city of Chicago. That says more to me about him, his love of the sport and desire to achieve. Training and competing while facing questions about why wasn’t he in some other sport not only from coaches at first but from his peers as well. In the same spirit Davis is questioned about is stoic approach when Apollo Anton Ono is praised for his individual effort and monastic life style by living solely dedicated to his sport in the Olympic village in Colorado Springs, which is what Davis does, living dedicated to his sport, just not in Colorado. And what about all the other athletes too mostly again in individual events who do the same thing.
So for Chad, I think it’s more a case of sour grapes, because he can’t live part of his dream but could care less what it means to someone else and their dream of achievement.
Chad owes his teammate an apology but so do the announcers for the Olympics even more so owe Shani Davis an apology rather than praising his victory like they have done for everyone else. They immediately focus on the lost medal in the pursuit event and an upset Chad Hedrick. And not to pick specifically on Melissa Stark, who, when questioning Shani Davis on the ice after he won the gold, asked first about the pursuit event and Chad Hedrick rather then the 1000 metre event which he just won. Then asked not about what he felt about winning but rather how it felt about being the first African American Athlete to win an individual gold in the Winter Games. When his answers were short she took visible offense to his lack of response and made faces. But the clue was their for her in her question it was an individual gold, and her first question should have been, How does it feel to you to win Olympic Gold? They ask that to most every other athlete first then focus in on all the other things they want to ask, Why not for Shani?
Where are these questions when other athletes from our country knock other athletes from our country from medal contention as happens in every event in the Olympic Games. The athletes compete not for nations but as individuals first, as national figures second. Other athletes are asked how they fell about the event that they have just been in and how they feel about their efforts in the event that has just happened. Why is Shani different?
For some reason though, the keep to himself attitude of Shani Davis, which is no different from most of the other athletes, seems to have sparked the ire of the press and Chad Hedrick for sure.
So from one human being to another I would like to say congratulations to Shani Davis for living his dream and will admit that in writing this I’m not trying to right some wrong as my primary motive but to live something that is my dream to write. While I’m not the best at this I practice and can take a lesson or two from Mr. Davis and Mr. Hedrick from this as well. From Mr. Hedrick that it’s better to focus on what you can control rather than what you can’t , and by this I mean that sometimes I don’t write because I don’t want to risk what others may say about what I write but whose fault is that theirs or mine. It’s mine, and while Chad may not have won the pursuit gold it’s no more Shani’s fault than it is a 1000 other things.
I did notice that Shani seems happy about winning his 1000 metre gold despite all the murmurings about other things going on because as the results went up he realized his dream and inside himself felt what I can only imagine relate to a sense of completion and accomplishment. I have some sense of that feeling having won first place in a giant slalom race against other skiers who were favored to win. Not in the Olympics but in a sanctioned ski race. I did get to stand a top the podium and in that outcome heard the bickering from other racers who thought they were better than me, just not that day. Everything seemed to just click that day in the race course from the start gate right on down to the finish. Despite it all I look at the trophy and remember feeling happy and not so much the other stuff.
And finally the lesson from Mr. Davis, that it takes courage to live your dreams and sometimes when you do the thing you want their will be other people who won’t be happy regardless but you can really only make yourself happy at the end of the day and that’s all that really matters in the days to come and you reflect back on your life