Success in the long run -- or skate -- for Shani
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Olympic champion Shani Davis (above) has more reason than ever to concentrate all his energy on long-track speedskating, in which he almost certainly will be a medal favorite in two events at the 2010 Olympics.
Davis, who likes to break up his season by skating short track for part of it, failed to make the fall U.S. World Cup team in short track when he finished seventh in American Cup I over the weekend in Plymouth, Minn.
He already is a World Cup team member in long track.
Davis, 26, was 2006 Olympic champion at 1,000 meters and silver medalist at 1,500. He utterly dominated the 1,000 on the World Cup circuit last year, winning nine of 10 races, then capped the 2007-08 season with the world single-distance title. He also was World Cup leader and single-distance bronze medalist at 1,500.
Other speedskating news: Three-time Olympian Jennifer Rodriguez, who retired after the 2006 Olympics, is back in training and concentrating on the sprints. Rodriguez, 32, was 2002 Olympic bronze medalist at 1,000 and 1,500 meters.
The U.S. women’s speedskating team needs all the help it can get, given the abysmal results since the Turin Winter Games. No U.S. skater made the top 10 in any event at the 2008 single-distance worlds, and none has won a medal in any World Cup event the past two seasons.
-- Philip Hersh
