Riveting TV as duelling divas Shani and Chad cross blades

America At Large:  A dozen years have passed since Tonya had Nancy kneecapped on the way to Lillehammer, a long time between ice-skating divas by American television standards, writes George Kimball

Suffice it to say that had NBC, which has been broadcasting the Winter Games from Turin, seen this little tiff coming, it could have saved itself a lot of time and money by dispensing with all those Michelle Kwan and Bode Miller promos that never saw the light of day and cut straight to the chase.

Who could have known that the closest thing to "must-see TV" to come out of Turin would emerge from America's duelling men's long-track speed-skating participants? Who could have foreseen that in living rooms across the US this was going to turn into the Shani-and-Chad Olympiad?

The most riveting performance of these games came at the conclusion of Tuesday night's men's 1,500 metre race. In a bizarre news conference otherwise notable for the almost total silence of the actual gold medallist, US divas Shani Davis (silver) and Chad Hedrick (bronze) sat a few feet apart and, without ever deigning to address one another, exchanged thinly veiled insults.

And while they stopped just short of hitting one another with their purses, at least one of the duelling divas did seem prepared to take the feud to the next level.

"If somebody wanted to put on a celebrity boxing match, I think I could take him," said Davis. "I know he's from Texas, so he's got to be tough, but I used to have a pretty nice jab until I retired it in high school."

Davis is a 23-year-old African-American from the South Side of Chicago, a speed-skating hotbed if ever there was one. He cut his teeth on roller skates before switching over to the ice.

As divas go, Hedrick is almost as unlikely. The 28-year-old grew up in Spring, Texas, where they have to import their ice.

"I really don't know a lot about the guy," said Hedrick. "We come from different backgrounds. We have different philosophies on different things. We're going to bump heads from time to time."

Davis likened the relationship between him and his estranged team-mate to another doomed pairing.

"Well," he said, "we're not exactly Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal."

"No," agreed Hedrick. "I imagine Shaq and Kobe said a lot more to each other than Shani and I do."

Exactly how did this unlikely duo came to be "team-mates", in the loosest sense of that term, and how did their bitter feud became the stuff of public currency? In their first encounter in Turin, Hedrick won the 5,000 metres and Davis finished seventh. Davis thereupon announced that, in order to concentrate his energies on the 1,000 metres, he would not participate in a team pursuit.

The wisdom of that decision would appear to have been confirmed when he won his event, but it apparently didn't sit well with Hedrick. (The US pursuit team, sans Davis, failed to qualify for the final, and Hedrick finished an up-the-track sixth behind Davis in the 1,000 metres.)

"When he chose not to do the team pursuit, I felt betrayed," recalled Hedrick. "Not only did Shani not participate, he didn't even discuss it with me."

The upshot, or so claimed Hedrick, was that "we passed up a medal".

It should be noted here that Hedrick came into the games with an outside shot at matching Eric Heiden's 1980 record of five golds in one games, but he needed a pursuit medal to do it. Davis, on the other hand, appears to have been more concerned about doing well in the events in which he was entered. Exactly how this makes the former a "team player" and the latter an "unpatriotic" (Hedrick's phrase) lout obsessed with individual glory would seem a matter of semantics.

"He does what's best for him," said Davis, whose 1,000 metres win had made him the first black athlete to win a Winter Olympics gold medal. "I do what's best for me."

Davis recalled having congratulated Hedrick after his 5,000 metres win, and reflected his disappointment the Texan had not done the same after Shani's win in the 1,000 metres.

"I'll be honest," said Davis. "It would've been nice after the 1,000 metres final if he'd been a good team-mate and shook my hand. I shook his hand and even hugged him after the 5,000."

With that he rose from his seat. "Shakes my hand only when I lose," he muttered. "Typical Chad. I'm done." And with that he was out the door.

"That's just like Shani," muttered Hedrick.

At least one participant felt Davis and Hedrick were so concerned with one another in the 1,500 metres final they might have allowed the gold medal to slip by default to Enrico Fabris of Italy.

"It was like one of those cycling races where the two rivals keep looking over their shoulder for the big-sponsored team, worrying about their peers. And then the guy from the bike shop in New York sneaks ahead and wins."

Derek Parra, the defending Olympic champion who finished 19th in the 1,500 metres, offered his analysis: "Could one of them have been on the top of the podium if they weren't so concerned about beating each other? Who knows?"

Hedrick seemed to admit as much: "To be honest, I was pushing a little harder to beat Shani. We were so focused on each other we were not focused on Enrico."

Davis, in any case, edged Hedrick for silver, ensuring both would share the dais with Fabris, who sat between them while they lobbed grenades at each other.

When his time was posted, ensuring he would finish second, Davis had been approached by Hedrick, who shook his hand in a gesture certain to be caught by the television cameras. Reminded of that later, Davis had a two-word reply.

"Not genuine."