A Parody of the QwestDex Directory:
“Dex Knows Something You Don’t Know”

Now that Qwest is our new sponsor, has everyone checked out the QwestDex Directory?

“Who knows where to find the most corrupt sport in the whole wide world?
Dex Knows.”

Dex Knows Salt Lake City.
Dex Knows the Protocol.
Dex Knows something you don’t know.


Even if you’ve known for years that the national governing body of your sport doesn’t care about you, it can still hurt a bit when you hear those exact words coming from the mouth of your Dear Leader. Last weekend, my agent tried to get a media pass for the World Sprint Championships, because I was an alternate for this competition and Steph wanted to make sure she’d be able to take pictures if I got to compete. Though several other skaters’ families and agents got VIP passes, as well as skaters who weren’t even competitors or alternates, Steph was not able to obtain a pass. The reason given by USS president Andy Gabel was that, “Nobody cares about Eva Rodansky.”


When I heard this, I started to think. The first thing that came to mind is that, on the contrary, several people care deeply about my speedskating career precisely because I am fighting people like Andy and all that he represents. I know U.S. Speedskating wants me to just shut up and go away. I also know that it is taking me such a long time to get good at this sport because I have been blackballed and misled by the people in charge, and I’ve been forced to figure this sport out on my own because I have never been anyone’s pampered pet.

It’s disgusting to me that this sport is set up so that rich mommies and daddies are expected to support their kids, and that they need to be right there hiring lawyers to make sure that their kids aren’t screwed over. My parents don’t get involved in sports politics because they always knew how sick it is, and they made it absolutely clear that this is MY fight.

Once I figured out my own position, I started wondering, “Which athletes DOES U.S. Speedskating care about?” Let’s say they think I suck, and so therefore, they would have respect for athletes who win. How does that hold up? Well, they’re trying to sue Chad Hedrick, they try to take away World Cup travel funding for athletes with private sponsors, and they outright refuse to work with the highly marketable Shani Davis and Apolo Ohno. All of this demonstrates to me that U.S. Speedskating does not care about it's top performers.

Suddenly, the answer came to me. It has nothing to do with performance, and it really doesn’t have that much to do with where the skater comes from. The only athletes U.S. Speedskating “cares about” are the ones who kiss their ass! Where does this attitude come from, and what are the consequences for the athletes?


Dex Knows Where to Find Dr. Phil

Now, I’m no Dr. Phil, but, IN MY OPINION, what we have here is a 40-something-year-old man who is jealous of the fact that a 22-year-old short track superstar has screaming teenage groupies; whose only ambition as a sports administrator is to exert control over athletes with 10 times the physical potential that he ever had, and who can’t stomach the idea that the next generation of athletes should have more than he did when he was competing, in order to keep up with the progress of the rest of the speedskating world.

The point of being a sports administrator, IN MY OPINION, is to facilitate the careers of the athletes in your charge. Anyone who has residual issues of jealousy over fame, financial opportunity, or actually having been beaten in a race by a certain person has a CONFLICT OF INTEREST and ought to step down.

The consequences of U.S. Speedskating’s inability to work with Apolo and Shani, and as a result, losing the ability to incorporate these skaters into our marketing campaigns, are negative for the entire organization and the athletes below. Enough already with the outdated idea that speedskaters should not expect to make a living. Why can’t we begin with the premise that someone like Apolo Ohno ought to be able to make an obscene amount of money, while someone like me should at least be able to put food in my mouth? With a proper marketing strategy that fully capitalized on our best athletes, this would be possible.

Instead, Gabel lets his own personal issues get in the way, then smugly congratulates himself on selling our team to Qwest for far less than we’re worth. I’m told I shouldn’t scoff at $1.8 million, but why shouldn’t I, when I’ve become a walking billboard for Qwest without seeing a single penny of additional funding and at the expense of my own personal logo space?

I’ve heard that the additional funding from Qwest will go towards “development.” Just what does that mean for me? U.S. Speedskating didn’t “develop” me. After my 6 years in exile, I paid my way into the Utah Olympic Oval’s FAST program, and from there I qualified for the US National team. Now that I’ve been skating world cups for 3 seasons, apparently, I’m expendable, but then again, so are other very talented skaters, such as Chris Callis, Sarah Elliott, and Katie Krall. Katie just quit, by the way, and the other two continue to under-perform because nobody cares about them and there seems to be no place for them. My career would have suffered a similar fate had I remained in USS programs.

Why should we focus on “development” when we can’t even work with the skaters we already have? Does U.S. Speedskating have so many athletes that we can afford to lose a great skater like Katie Krall? I don’t think so.

Let’s say the Qwest money is going towards development. Honestly, how much money do you need to get someone to scan the Fitness and Speed Skating Times for inline race results, and make a couple of phone calls to some inline coaches? What we really are looking for is a talent scout – someone who can find us those physical specimens who are so strong that even coaches with no formal education in sports physiology can make something out of them.



Dex Knows the Dynasty of the Golden Clipboard

Where else, other than in the United States, can someone go from skater to Regional Team coach, to National Team coach, without a college degree in a field related to physical education or sports physiology? In the Summer 2004 edition of the USOC’s Olympic Coach Magazine (vol. 16, no.2), Major League Soccer conditioning coach Vern Gambetta discusses his concern about the lack of physical education among American national-level coaches in various sports.

From my own experience, I know that there can be many negative consequences for athletes working under uneducated coaches. For example, even if such coaches occasionally get lucky, they must destroy many a career before they “figure things out” by trial and error. Don’t you think that national team athletes deserve better? In science, this would be the equivalent of turning a Biology 101 lab class loose on Phase 3 human clinical trials.

I know USS has a negative assessment of my talent for speedskating. However, I also have obtained the opinion of a Russian coach who has a Ph.D. in sports physiology, has published hundreds of scientific papers in this field, and has produced several World Champions, Olympic Champions, World Record Holders, and countless National-level skaters. This is what he had to say after seeing me skate a World Cup race a few years ago: “Great raw material with the right sort of competitive drive. It’s a shame nobody taught her how to skate properly.”

Am I going to trust this man, with all of his credentials, or am I going to believe the Inheritors of the Golden Clipboard?

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And now, let us return for a moment to the statement, “Nobody cares about Eva Rodansky.” You know, Andy, the beauty of metric speedskating is that nobody has to care about me. That’s why I love this sport. I can show up at the Oval and give all of you the finger, and the electronic timing system will still give me whatever time I skate. This isn’t figure skating. I don’t have to suck up to the judges, and I don’t have to whack anyone in the leg in order to win. Isn’t it comforting to know that you can all hate me, but if you ever wanted to play god with my career, you wouldn’t be able to do it.

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Dex Knows a lot more things about US Speedskating that we will not go into at this time. I hope to be around when all the dirt comes out some day.


For now…

“Who knows where to find a wrecking ball and a bulldozer?”

Dex Knows.

Dex Knows that US Speedskating needs to be destroyed and rebuilt from scratch, in order to become what it was meant to be: An organization that gives all kids in America an equal chance to skate fast on the ice.