After losing out on the honor of United States flag-bearer, speedskater Shani Davis elected to skip the ceremony entirely.
Davis had publicly criticized the fact that a coin toss had been used to decide the flag-bearer after a tied vote of athletes, so his decision to skip the ceremony will raise eyebrows.
A U.S. Speedskating spokesman said via ESPN and the Associated Press, however, that the two items are not connected. Davis had apparently planned to skip the ceremony all along, and only considered going when he was nominated to be flag-bearer.
Some athletes do skip the opening ceremony in light of their training or competition schedule, so this is far from unprecedented. It was always going to be somewhat controversial, though, given Davis’s commentary about how the flag-bearer was selected.
