Kenders' Musings

For those of you not following the olympic games, especially Bryant Gumbel, Shani Davis won the gold in the Men's 1000 meter.

Why, you may ask, am I calling an Olympic "Champion" a "Punk of Olympic Proportions", and if you are it shows that you are not paying attention to the Olympics or you may very well be Bryant Gumbel. If you are Bryant, welcome to The Wide Awakes, stay a bit, look around, enjoy yourself, and please, don't let the "paucity of blacks" on the list of esteemed writers of this site chase you away.



Then again, Mr. Gumbel, you didn't claim that this site looked like a GOP convention because we don't have any black writers. Or do we? Don't know. Most of us have never met the others, and being conservative leaning we don't ask someone what color they are as a means of judging their worth....but hey, to each his own, right?

If you don't know the story of Shani Davis' and his selfish Olympic actions, allow me to enlighten you.

Shani Davis grew up a poor, black child on Chicago's Southside, eschewing the allure of dealing and gangs to chase down the dream of speed skating. Pushed along by his mother he excelled at the sport, so much so that he has now won a Gold Medal.

The American team, in another speed skating event, Team Pursuit, needed another member to compete, and Shani Davis was asked to skate.

He refused, saying, "I could care less what other people say about me"..."I didn't come here to skate the team pursuit.''

The U.S. Team subsequently lost. Whether Shani Davis would have made a difference is, and shall remain, unknown, but the chances are good that he would have made a huge difference, at least giving the U.S. team a shot at making it to the finals.

And that is why Shani Davis is a punk.

Win, lose or draw, he displayed an attitude that is the antithesis of the "Olympic Spirit", acting selfishly when most other people would have given much to have the chance at a medal in the Olympics.

Conversly, Alpine Skier Lindsey Kildow went down in a horrifying spill during a training run, returning the next day with the comment, "Pain was something that I was going to take, no matter what.

And THAT, dear readers, is an "Olympic Spirit"!!!

It is the difference between an Olympian, and someone that just happens to be the fastest skater at 1000 meters.

ATTITUDE!!!!

It's funny that the day Gumball mentions there are a "paucity of blacks" in the Winter Olympics is the day Davis becomes the first black American athlete to win a medal in an individual sport at the Winter Games, and for that I congratulate Davis. I can't begrudge him his medal.

But I can show that he is a slefish punk.