Turin, Italy 2006 Winter Olympic Games

Olympic Speedskating Analysis

TURIN, Italy – If you're ever going to be on the edge of your seat watching a speedskating race, Tuesday's 1,500 meters will be the one. Everybody here is looking forward to what should be the premier race in this Olympics.

The metric mile is a magical race where the two realms of long-track speedskating come together: good long-distance sprinters against good short-distance, all-around skaters. And, it will pit Shani Davis against Chad Hedrick, the two best skaters in the world at this distance. Hedrick is the world record holder in the 1,500 (1:42.78), and Davis – the 2005 world all-around champion – is clearly the second-best. This race will be closer than Saturday's 1,000, when Davis won gold and Hedrick finished sixth, .56 seconds off the pace.

Hedrick has already won gold here in the 5,000, but won't be able to complete his quest to win five gold medals, partially because the U.S. team did not advance beyond the quarterfinals in the team pursuit. That brings us to why a lot of people might be interested in the 1,500. Davis has been criticized for not racing in the pursuit to concentrate on the 1,000 and some feel that cost the U.S. a legitimate shot at a gold medal. It certainly has caused some tension between Davis and Hedrick.

The tension between them heated up after the 1,000. Hedrick was disappointed in finishing sixth, but winning certainly was a long shot for him. He's a competitor and doesn't like to share the limelight, and he felt let down by Davis because of the team pursuit situation. So, the last guy Hedrick wanted to lose to was Davis. The press is probably making more of their relationship – or lack of one – than there really is. Hedrick just doesn't like to lose. If he gets second place in a race, he considers himself the first loser.

Davis did the right thing by not skating in the pursuit. His goal was to skate the 1,000 and the 1,500. He was put in a unique position with team pursuit. It's a new race for the Olympics and the format was something that none of the teams were quite sure how to deal with. With four races over a two-day period, nobody knew how it was going to affect them in their later races. I talked with Germany's Anni Friesinger, who is one of the best in the world, and she told me that two days after she had skated three of the four pursuits she was still very tired. That may have cost her the gold medal Sunday in the 1,000, one of her best distances. She ended up third. Looking back, she may regret skating so much in pursuit.

Another thing that people may be overlooking is that, in Salt Lake City, Davis was a member of the short-track team for a relay race, but didn't get to skate. So he's been in that situation before, where he didn't get to participate and he didn't want to do that to somebody here. It's tough to fault him for what he did. He may look selfish, but he was in that same position four years ago and didn't want anyone else to be in that position here.

For Hedrick, a confident guy and strong competitor who thrives on rivalries, the situation with Davis can actually be helpful. Davis, on the other hand, prefers to block out all controversy and focus fully on his races. If I were a psychologist, I'd enjoy trying to interpret what's going on here.

I think the controversy between them is having very little effect on the other U.S. skaters. Davis has meshed very well with the team. Some people may be concerned that because he's black the controversy is racially motivated, but I don't think anyone on the team looks at him in a different way. The coaches, however, may be concerned because they don't want things to blow up because of the press and have this spill over to the other athletes.

In spite of all this – or, perhaps, because of it – we should see a fantastic race Tuesday.

Another storyline is the possibility that, with wins in the 1,500 and 10,000, the U.S. would win every individual long track race here, something that hasn't happened since 1980. That and the overall U.S. dominance have the Dutch skaters pretty frustrated. They pride themselves on being a speedskating nation with a lot of tradition, and they don't know what to do to break the success of the Americans here.

There's a definite shift in the balance of power and the Dutch are going crazy.

Updated on Sunday, Feb 19, 2006 8:18 pm, EST

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