Women's figure skating will be the main event

	Sasha Cohen is ethereal, exquisite and heavenly, but her one flaw could cost her the gold. Elsa/Getty Images

As much as it kills my editors to admit it, the event that attracts the largest American television audience in sports, with the exception of the Super Bowl, is the ladies' Olympic figure skating final. It defies rational explanation, to be honest, but every four years the eyes of the nation love to feast on leaping ice nymphs. In Turin, the drama promises to be especially high, and I'm betting it lives up to NBC's suffocating hype.

I have a particular interest in this group. Over the years, I've done profiles on the three women who will garner most of the attention: Russia's Irina Slutskaya, and America's Sasha Cohen and Michelle Kwan. All three have interesting back-stories, are at least 21 (unusual for this sport) and are personable.

Slutskaya, interestingly, was the only one who invited me into her home -- the two Americans are unusually guarded in that respect -- and has the most outgoing personality. Her apartment was a modest (by American standards) two-bedroom flat in Moscow that she shared with her mom, dog, and about 12,000 stuffed animals. Irina has a real twinkle in her eye that belies the fact that she's overcome some serious health problems. She missed most of 2003 and 2004 with vasculitis, an inflammation of the blood vessels around her heart.

Slutskaya will try to become the first Russian woman to win Olympic gold in singles, and, as defending world champion, will be the favorite going in. But the sentimental favorite, of course, will be Kwan, who'll be competing in her third and presumably last Olympics.

A gold medal is all Kwan's resume lacks, and she'll actually have less pressure on her than in 1998, when she won silver, or 2002, when she took bronze. Each time she was the overwhelming favorite. Kwan has suffered a series of minor injuries this season -- she hasn't competed in a serious event since finishing fourth in last year's world championships -- and skating's new scoring system doesn't play to her strengths. She'll do well to win a medal, but consistency is her hallmark, and if the other skaters implode, hers would be a very popular win.

My pick for gold, however, is the diminutive Cohen. It's her performance I'm most looking forward to covering, for two reasons. I find her the most enchanting skater I've ever watched. When she is on, Cohen is -- and I don't use this word lightly -- ethereal. Highly refined, delicate, exquisite, heavenly -- they all apply. I could watch her all day. Second, she has a heretofore fatal flaw: She falls once, or pops a couple of jumps, just enough to destroy the magic.

Will it happen again? Or will she reach down and skate the performance of her life, as Sarah Hughes did four years ago, and Tara Lipinski eight years ago?

Cohen's fans will be on edge the entire four minutes, fingers digging into their palms, hearts in their throats, a pit of dread in their stomachs until the final spin. That's why we watch. For if she does it -- or Slutskaya, or Kwan -- and the magic doesn't fade, we'll all go to bed feeling these Olympics really were something special.