Icy rivalry starting to thaw

Last weekend's duel between Shani Davis and Chad Hedrick at the world all-around speedskating championships in Calgary ended with a sincere handshake and mutual praise between the two teammates, who feuded at Olympus.

''Congratulations to Shani -- he skated a wonderful, wonderful event," said Hedrick, after Davis defended his world title with a record 145.742 points.

Davis had a monster meet, winning both the 500 and 1,500 meters and taking back the global record in the metric mile (1:42.68) that he'd held before Hedrick broke it four months ago.

''To me, this is bigger than the Olympics," said Davis, who became the first American since Eric Heiden to win two titles.

It was a bummer of a weekend for Hedrick, the former champ who not only lost two world marks (Sven Kramer of the Netherlands grabbed the 10,000), but also ended up 12th after failing to change lanes in the climactic 6-miler and being disqualified.

''I'm not very happy about what happened to Chad out there," Davis empathized. ''I would never wish that on anybody."

With German defender Anni Friesinger absent, Canada's Cindy Klassen, who won five medals in Turin, ran the table on the women's side, taking all four races and reclaiming the crown she won in 2003, with Germany's Claudia Pechstein finishing second for the eighth time. Top US finisher was Catherine Raney in 12th.

Count Apolo Anton Ohno out of the world team and individual short-track speedskating championships in Montreal and Minneapolis over the next two weekends. The Olympic champ has called it a season, as has top US woman Hyo-Jung Kim, who has been bothered by an Achilles' tendon injury all winter. The rest of the men's team (Rusty Smith, J.P. Kepka, Anthony Lobello, Alex Izykowski) will compete, as will Allison Baver and Kimberly Derrick from the women's squad. They'll be joined by five-time Olympian Amy Peterson, who missed getting to Turin but will be making her farewell skate in her home state at 34. The Koreans, who won 10 medals at the Games, are bringing their varsity, led by triple gold medalists Ahn Hyun-Soo and Jin Sun-Yu . . . Ohno and long-track gold medalist Joey Cheek are the newest faces on the special-edition Wheaties boxes on shelves this month. They join Olympic predecessors Sarah Hughes, Kristi Yamaguchi, Heiden, and the 1980 men's and 1998 women's ice hockey teams in a tradition that goes back before Jesse Owens in the '30s . . . Only five of the 12 Olympic medalists, including all four of the silvers, ended up going to the World Figure Skating Championships, which began yesterday in Calgary. The only surprise was that Japan let women's champion Shizuka Arakawa stay home, since Tokyo is hosting next year's event and the Japanese need a couple of top-10 finishers to guarantee three entries. That leaves two-time medalist Fumie Suguri, Yoshie Onda, and Yukari Nakano. Miki Ando, who had a disastrous Olympics, isn't in Calgary. With all the absences, the Americans figure to win at least three medals (including two golds), with Sasha Cohen (if her sore groin muscle cooperates), dancers Tanith Belbin and Benjamin Agosto, and either Evan Lysacek (who has been battling a nasty bacterial infection since the Games) or Johnny Weir, with Kimmie Meissner possibly grabbing a fourth . . . Weir, the three-time US champ, on why skaters can be more than a little insecure: ''You never know who has your back in figure skating. You never know who wants you to do well, who pretends they want you to do well, and who just outright hates you and wants you to do very poorly. That's why skaters are so uptight. You never know what's going to happen to you. You never know who's loving you and who's not."

Most of the non-Alpine world wasn't paying attention, but Bode Miller and Daron Rahlves, the two biggest US busts in Turin, had a spectacular showing at last week's World Cup finals in Sweden. They finished 1-2 in the super-G, with Miller also coming in second in the downhill. That put them third (Miller) and fourth (Rahlves) in the overall standings behind Austria's Benjamin Raich and Norway's Aksel Lund Svindal. Rahlves, in his farewell season, placed third in both the downhill and super-G standings. Besides taking the men's title, the Austrians also finished first in the season standings in the downhill (Michael Walchhofer) and giant slalom (Raich). Croatia's Janica Kostelic, the Army of One of the Balkans, ran away with the women's title with a record 1,970 points (more than 300 ahead of Sweden's Anja Paerson) and claimed both the slalom and giant slalom crowns. Top American woman overall (in fifth) was Lindsey Kildow, who finished second in the downhill standings to Michaela Dorfmeister and fourth in the super-G . . . Debbie McCormick's rink ran into a three-crowned obstacle yesterday, losing to defending champion Sweden after winning their first three matches at the women's World Curling Championships in Alberta. McCormick, who won the 2003 title, is still in fine shape, though, sitting in medal position midway through the round-robin. The US males, behind Olympic bronze medalist Pete Fenson, are favored to make the podium again at next month's men's event in Lowell. Tickets for the nine-day tournament at Tsongas Arena can be obtained at the box office or through Ticketmaster (617-931-2000 or www.ticketmaster.com).

US skeleton sledder Kevin Ellis, who broke his back during a pickup toboggan race at the Olympics, will be out of action for at least a year. Ellis, who had four rods and eight pins placed around his spine after he broke a vertebra when he went over a ramp, has lost 15 pounds and faces more surgery and a lengthy rehab. But he's thankful still to be walking. ''There were about three or four minutes there when I was looking at my toes and couldn't get them to move," said Ellis, who finished 17th at Turin. ''That was when I was about to panic." . . . Rough week for the US women's field hockey team, which finished fourth at the recent Four Nations tournament in Argentina, a tuneup for next month's World Cup qualifier in Rome, where the Americans are seeded sixth in the 12-team field. The US, which has qualified for the last six quadrennial Cups, needs to be among the top five to join Olympic champion Germany, continental champions Argentina, Australia, India, South Africa, and the Netherlands plus host Spain for the September tournament in Madrid. On the squad are Massachusetts natives Kelly Dostal (Hatfield), Kelly Doton (Greenfield), and Dina Rizzo (Walpole).

Material from Olympic committees, sports federations, interviews, and wire services were used in this report.