TURIN, Italy (AP) -- Say what you want about Shani Davis. Call him a trailblazer. Accuse him of

TURIN, Italy (AP) -- Say what you want about Shani Davis. Call him a trailblazer. Accuse him of selfishness. Snicker at him for being a momma's boy.
Just don't forget this: He's also an Olympic champion.
Davis became the first black to claim an individual gold medal in Winter Olympic history Saturday, winning the 1,000-meter speedskating race and justifying his decision to focus on himself first, his team second.
Joey Cheek made it a 1-2 American finish, adding a silver to his victory in the 500.
"I'm one of a kind," Davis said, fully aware of how much he stands out in the mostly white sport. "I'm a different type of person. I have a different charisma. A lot of people don't understand me."
That much was clear from the racially charged messages to his personal Web site -- "people saying they hoped I would fall, break my leg, using the n-word," he said. Even the great Eric Heiden had some choice words for America's newest gold medalist, regarding his decision to skip the team pursuit.
"He is going his own way," said Heiden, who won five gold medals at the 1980 Lake Placid Games. "He's very different to a lot of speedskaters, and we have to respect that, but he is not a team player."
Main rival
Maybe not, but the 23-year-old from Chicago's South Side is building a heck of a rivalry with Texan Chad Hedrick.
Hedrick won the first speedskating gold with a dominating performance in the 5,000. Davis got him back in the 1,000, the weakest of Hedrick's individual events. They'll face off again Tuesday in the 1,500 -- an event Davis ruled until Hedrick snatched away the world record.
"I'm not trying to beat Chad," Davis insisted. "I'm trying to beat everyone."
Hedrick, who had only skated the 1,000 a half-dozen times in his career, put up an early time that stood until Davis bested it in the 19th of 21 pairs with a clocking of 1 minute, 8.89 seconds. Four other skaters passed Hedrick as well, leaving him in sixth place.
Erben Wennemars of the Netherlands claimed the bronze, which was fine with Hedrick.
"Once Shani beat me, I didn't care if I got a bronze," he said. "I'm here to win. It's all or nothing."
Frosty relations
The testy relationship between the two U.S. stars was apparent after the race. Hedrick didn't even bother congratulating Davis.
"Shani skated fast today," Hedrick said. "That's about all I have to say about that."
Davis came under fire for skipping the team pursuit -- especially when a Hedrick-led squad was knocked out by Italy in the quarterfinals, doomed by a slow skater who might not have been on the ice if Davis was available. The loss denied Hedrick a chance to go after Heiden's record of records, those five golds at Lake Placid.
But Davis, world record holder in the 1,000, wanted to focus on his signature event. And his victory -- a third straight individual triumph for the U.S. men at the Olympic oval -- means that Hedrick's quest would have come up short, even with a gold in the team pursuit.
After Davis became the first guy to break 1:09 on the slow Turin ice, there were still two more pairs to go -- four skaters capable of knocking him out.
Close for Cheek
Cheek went in the next group and came the closest, fading a bit at the end for a time of 1:09.16. Wennemars grabbed the bronze in 1:09.32.
"I'm just very happy about my race," Davis said. "More than anything, the things I trained for, I was right about."
He's not even sure that being the first black to win an individual winter gold is that big a deal because of speedskating's obscurity outside of the Olympics.
"It's a breakthrough," Davis said, "but it's what people make of it."
He seemed to be doing his own thing in Turin, avoiding the media and the rest of the team. There was even talk he would skip the medalist news conference, though he showed up and stayed long past the allotted time.
"If he feels it's him against the rest of the world, then it's him who pitted himself against the world," American teammate Casey FitzRandolph said.
Vonetta Flowers became the first black to capture winter gold at the Salt Lake City Games four years ago. She was a pusher on the two-woman bobsled team, someone who helps get the machine going and hops along for the ride.
Davis won this gold entirely on his own.
"If you put your mind to it and you believe it, you can achieve it," he said. "You cannot give up -- even if the road is a tough road."