The Ladies figure skating isn't until the 21st and 23rd ... but I will annoy you already <G>!
Silver no longer good enough for Cohen
news.yahoo.com
Excerpt:
The Winter Games that open Friday night might finally be ... when the 5-2, 95-pound Cohen stands tallest among the world's skaters. She could bring the USA a women's gold for the fourth time in five Olympics.
"I think in St. Louis she established herself as the No. 1 American lady and therefore goes to Torino with a shot at a medal and hopefully the gold," says John Nicks, her 76-year-old, British-born coach, who moonlights as a sharp-tongued judge on Fox's Skating With Celebrities.
Alexandra Pauline Cohen, nicknamed Sasha by her Ukrainian-born mother, Galina, has cornered the market on silver. Beyond her previous seconds at nationals, she won silver medals at the past two world championships. Now 21, she and her coach say she has new maturity and focus. Maybe that's what was lacking in the past when she came so close to big titles.
In Torino, she will face the likes of 2005 world champion Irina Slutskaya of Russia, Japan's Shizuka Arakawa, Italy's Carolina Costner - and, as she has for all of her senior-level competitive life, Kwan.
"Obviously, I'm going in there wanting to win," Cohen said at a news conference following her nationals victory. "My personal best is what my main goal is going to be because then I know no matter what happens that I've done everything I could do."
In a teleconference just before nationals and news conferences during it, Cohen fielded every question, including many about Kwan. "If she's healthy and able to compete, she's definitely one of the strongest to compete for the U.S. at the Olympics," she said.
However, Cohen has declined interviews since nationals. "I am now totally concentrating on my skating," she says in Sasha's Journal on her website (SashaCohen.com).
Nationals was a step toward erasing her image as skating's Phil Mickelson. He was golf's "best player never to win a major" until his 2004 Masters win. Now that Cohen has won a U.S. title, she approaches the ultimate title, Olympic champion.
"She has an exquisite style, an extraordinary ability and she has been this year putting it together in much greater success without mistakes," says Dick Button, two-time Olympic champion and an NBC analyst in Italy. "Nobody equals her in positions, in spins. The quality and the ease of her jumps, etc., are extraordinary. All she has to do is complete the moves." |
