For many years, the Winter Olympic Games were as white as the snow and ice that are its main playing fields, with a few notable exceptions.

There was the Jamaican bobsled team who competed in the 1988 Olympics (the actual inspiration behind the movie “Cool Runnings”) and American figure skater Debi Thomas, who won a bronze medal in figure skating that same year. Bobsledder Vonetta Flowers became the first African-American ever to win a gold medal in the Winter Olympics in 2002 with her bobsled partner, Jill Bakken.

But in 2006, Olympic history was made again when speed skater Shani Davis became the first African-American in Olympic history to win gold in an individual sport.

Cue the marketing machine, right? Well, not exactly. Davis, now 27, and a South Side Chicago native, is not your average publicity-seeking athlete interested in pursuing every commercial opportunity thrown his way. Instead of being able to cash in on his achievements, Davis has been a flashpoint for controversy.

Davis' impressive record in speed skating can’t be denied. He enters Vancouver, the home of this year’s Winter Games, as the world record holder in the 1,000m and the 1500m and the all-around samalog (an accounting of total points in skating competition.) Davis won a silver in the 1500 meters and a gold in the 1000m in 2006.

But unearned controversy has made his Olympics triumphs sour ones. Before the 2002 Olympics, it was said that Anton Apollo Ohno, another popular speed skater who would later win “Dancing With The Stars,” deliberately lost a qualifying race to help best friend Davis make the Olympic team. The two were eventually cleared of any wrongdoing in arbitration.

During the 2006 Games, teammate Chad Hedrick accused Davis of not being a good team member when he didn’t skate in the team pursuit event, an event that Davis was actually ineligible to skate in and had never committed to. It turned out that Hedrick was looking for Davis’ help to achieve a speed skating record he - Hedrick - wanted to pursue.

Davis was in a a dispute with USA Speedskating over sponsorships, and his image took a beating when the sports’ governing body never corrected media reports. Once Davis became the bad guy, his historic athletic accomplishments were overshadowed.

In the run-up to these Olympic Games, Davis has refused all media requests, including one from "The Oprah Winfrey Show." But on the ice, Davis has dominated speed-skating over the last several years, racking up gold medal after gold medal in the World Championships. In 2009, he won World Sprint Speed Skating Championship in Moscow. He is now one of only two male speed skaters to win both the World All-Around and World Sprint titles. The other is speed skating legend Eric Heiden.

Davis, who became a father two years ago to son Ayize, is his own coach and does not have a U.S. agent, only a Dutch one. He has requested that he not be listed in USA Speedskating’s media guide. In the Netherlands, where speed skating is hugely popular, Davis is a bonafide star, but could probably walk the streets without recognition in his own country, although he’s already the most decorated black athlete in the Winter Olympics, regardless of his results in Vancouver.
 
In a short interview with the Associated Press last year, Davis was cautiously optimistic about the upcoming Games, saying “I would like to have one out of three Olympics be a good experience.” He will skate four events in Vancouver, two where he’s favored and two where he has a good shot to compete for a podium spot.

To the world, he .....

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