February 18, 2006 – 1st African American in Winter Olympic History Wins Gold Medal for an Individual Event

Shani Davis, the award-winning, record-breaking American speed skater, was born in Chicago in 1982.

On his website, we learn that he started roller-skating at local rinks at age two. By age four Shani was darting around the roller rink so fast that skate guards would chase him just to ask him to slow down. Meanwhile, his mother started working for an attorney who happened to be a speed skating official and who’s son was an elite level speed skater. At the lawyer’s suggestion, Cherie enrolled Shani at a skating center for lessons when he was six years old.

Within two months of joining the Evanston Speedskating Club, the six-year-old started competing locally. An article in “Chicago Magazine” reports that “Davis realized just how unusual his group was when he skated in his first meets in the suburbs of Northbrook and Glen Ellyn. ‘I was like, Where are the rest of the black kids?’ he recalls, chuckling.”

By age 8 he was winning regional age-group competitions and began to hear about the Olympic ideal from his competitors and friends at his speedskating club. Shani’s mother encouraged him to pursue his full potential, and in an effort to build his endurance woke him most mornings to run a mile on a track close to their home.

In 2000 at age 18, he made history by becoming the first U.S. skater to make both the long and short track teams for the Junior World Teams. His height of 6’2″ always made him unique among ‘short’ trackers, but he used the extra height to race lower to the ice. The “Chicago Magazine” article notes:

At 6-foot-2, Davis is a giant by short-track standards. He’s been able to dominate middle distance (1,000 to 1,500 meters) in part because of an unusual combination of hip flexibility and leg strength, says Nathaniel Mills, a three-time Olympic skater who began coaching Davis in Evanston when the boy was 12. Once he gathers speed, Davis can get superlow, his glutes hovering just inches from the ice. ‘He’s had this superior body position his entire life,’ Mills notes.”

Davis won the silver medal at the 2004 World Allround Speed Skating Championships and the gold in both 2005 and 2006.

On this day in history, February 18, 2006, Shani became the first Black athlete to win a gold medal in Winter Olympic history for an individual event, winning the men’s 1,000-meter in Italy. He also won a silver medal in the 1500-meter race.

In 2009, he won the World Sprint Championships in Moscow, becoming the second male skater to win both the Sprint and Allround in his career, after Eric Heiden.

At the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada, he repeated his 2006 feat, and became the first man to win back-to-back gold medals in the 1000 meters, and repeating as the 1500-meter silver medalist, too.

Davis with the medals that he won in the 2010 Winter Olympics

He has won six World Single Distance Championships titles, three at 1500 meters (in 2004, 2007 and 2009) and three at 1000 meters (in 2007, 2008 and 2011), and he led the United States to its first and only World Championship gold medal in the Team Pursuit event in 2011. He has won ten career Overall World Cup titles, six at 1000 meters (in 2006, 2008–10, 2012, 2014) and four at 1500 meters (2008–2011). Davis also earned the title of Grand World Cup Champion for the 2013–14 season, earning the most points across all distances.

In 2014-15 Shani was crowned 1000m World Champion for the fourth time, marking his 10th individual World Championship title in his 10th year on the international long track circuit.

In 2016-17 Shani became the all-time leader in World Cup points, surpassing the long-time mark of Canadian sprinter Jeremy Wotherspoon.

Most recently, Shani was enshrined in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African-American History and Culture on the National Mall, where he is honored as one of U.S. sports history’s greatest ‘Gamechangers’, alongside Muhammad Ali, Jackie Robinson and other luminaries.

“Frozone,” an animated African-American superhero with ice powers from the film “The Incredibles,” was allegedly inspired by Shani Davis — so was the creation of the Washington, DC Inner City Excellence (DC-ICE).