TURIN, Italy – One of the unforgettable sports moments of my life came many years ago when, as a kid, I watched Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier wrestle for real on “Wide World of Sports.” They had come into the studio to analyze their first fight, and it was going OK, and then Ali called Frazier, “ignorant.”
Frazier, a proud man, stood up and said, “Who are you calling ignorant?”
And Ali jumped out of his seat, grabbed Frazier’s head and shouted, “Sit down, Joe! Sit down, Joe!” He was mostly clowning. But Frazier was not. Frazier wanted to kill him. You could see rage smoldering in the man’s eyes.
I can remember thinking: Wow, these two guys are not acting. This has nothing to do with sports. They really don’t like each other.
That was the wild scene Tuesday night at, of all places, a speed-skating news conference. So much of what you get at the Olympics is prepackaged emotion, perfect for the cameras. This was raw. Chad Hedrick and Shani Davis sat on the same podium to answer questions about a 1,500-meter race neither won. They would not look at each other. And you could feel the animosity crackling between them.
“I’m just throwing it out there,” Davis said at the crescendo of the tense 28-minute session. “It would have been nice if after I won the 1,000-meter race, he could have been a good teammate and shook my hand, just like I shook his hand – and HUGGED him – after he won the 5,000 meters.”
That Joe Frazier look burned in Shani Davis’ eyes. And then he walked out.
Well, nobody expected exactly that “Sixth Sense” ending to the Davis-Hedrick nasty-thon that has been bickering for almost the entire Olympics. But they are not acting. They really do not like each other.
Tuesday, America’s two best all-around speed skaters faced off. Finally, we would find out who was best. And we did find out. The best was Italian Enrico Fabris. He won the gold medal and set off a nationwide celebration. The Gazzetta newspaper was planning three pages of coverage on him alone.
Fabris’ victory left Shani Davis with silver and Chad Hedrick with bronze. The Brothers Grimm would call that a “happy ending,” since neither Davis nor Hedrick had made much of a play for the Pierre de Coubertin medal for true sportsmanship lately. Hedrick had questioned Davis’s patriotism. Davis had questioned Hedrick’s sincerity. Hedrick had, as mentioned, refused to offer congratulations after Davis won the 1,000-meter race. Davis refused to compete for the U.S. team pursuit – a quasi-relay – perhaps costing America, and Hedrick, a gold medal.
“This is not a heavyweight fight,” Davis would say, but that’s exactly what it was, a Don King production heavyweight fight matching two men from very different backgrounds. Hedrick is white, brash and hungry for attention. He grew up suburban Houston and he became an in-line-skating, X-Games legend.
Davis is black, withdrawn and focused on some sort of racing perfection, He grew up in the Chicago inner city, and he is the only African-American skater to make the Olympic team. As one teammate says, “They never liked each other.”
Still, Fabris’ shocking victory looked as if it would ease tensions a bit. It was kind of funny. Hedrick seemed ready to make peace. Right after the race, he admitted that he had probably spent too much energy trying to beat Shani, and not enough trying to win the gold medal.
“I think we both wanted to prove something to each other,” he said with a smile on his face. “And somebody else slid in there and got it from us.”
See, to Hedrick, this whole thing is kind of a show. He clearly does not like Davis, but he thinks the rivalry between them could bring some attention to skating. He’s the Ali in this scenario, looking for any way to build up the show and his own fame. And Davis is Joe Frazier. He’s offended by Hedrick’s talk. He does not see speed skating as a show. It’s a sport. It’s an art. He thinks Hedrick is all show.
“I’m not a phony,” Davis said.
Once they sat next to each other for the news conference, it was clear there would be no happy ending. Everything Hedrick said, Davis countered, and vice versa. At one point, the conversation turned to Michael Jordan and this exchange:
Hedrick: “Michael Jordan doesn’t go onto the court unless he’s going to win. He’s going to do anything he can do to win. And that’s how it is. That’s how every top level athlete thinks and if he’s not that way, he’s not a winner.”
Davis: “Speaking of Michael Jordan, since I’m from Chicago, and I’m a big Michael Jordan fan, I’ve never seen him act in an unprofessional manner when it came to losing.”
Get that? Hedrick used Jordan to represent winning. Davis used him to represent professionalism. And each was, shrewdly, ripping the other guy. When the press conference ended, Davis stormed out and muttered some angry words about Hedrick.
And Hedrick sat stunned for a while. Then he said to a friend that Davis just didn’t get the anger. People love this rivalry stuff.
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