Onward and upward

Cohen hopes to find her way onto future medal stands

NEW YORK -- When we saw figure skater Sasha Cohen after last winter's Olympics and world championships, she had the disheartened look of someone who had just missed a bus -- in her case, the one with the medal winners on it -- with the next one not due to pull into the station for another year. Nothing is wrong with fourth place, but Cohen knows she could have done better at the two biggest competitions of her life, especially since, as the bemedaled skaters creek into the ice-show circuit, those behind them typically move up to their place in line.

Apart from the near-flawless performances by Sarah Hughes at the Olympics and Irina Slutskaya at the Worlds, nobody in either competition skated programs that Cohen, then 17, could not have bettered had she skated cleanly. Last season wasn't supposed to be her time just yet, but in the pecking order of the sport, the light-on-her-feet dancer was supposed to emerge as the next It Girl, the stubborn, spunky apprentice the skating world would watch for the next quadrennium, asking, How many triples? When will she land that quad? Are she and her coach on the same page? How about in the same book? Did she really go to that party with Jeremy Bloom?

This was the athlete who had the chutzpah at the opening ceremonies in Salt Lake City to dial her mother and hand the cell phone to President Bush while he was standing with the U.S. delegation. When the U.S. team visited the White House several months later, Bush began his address to hundreds of Olympians and Paralympians by asking if anyone had a cell phone handy with his/her mother on the other end.

Over the weekend Cohen was at Madison Square Garden for an exhibition, sporting a new long program and, it seemed, a newfound spunk and optimism about her skating. "I'm more in control of the ice now," Cohen insisted. "Every practice I feel I'm making progress." At an event called Stars, Stripes & Skates, commemorating the events of Sept. 11, there was nary a judge in sight. Olympic alums Nancy Kerrigan, Surya Bonaly and Viktor Petrenko threw some numbers together, but Cohen was the only skater giving a serious audition, to music by Rachmaninoff that she will keep for the rest of the year. It seemed to play well.

Cohen only threw three triples into this program; she's aiming for seven, and possibly a quad, in time for nationals. Look for a risky triple-triple combination in her short program, too. The Olympics may not have been her springboard into frontrunner status for the next quadrennium, but the Worlds in Washington, D.C., next March could be. So the next few months will be critical. During that time, she'll compete in several international events -- Skate Canada, France's Lalique Trophée and the Cup of Russia -- where she'll likely face Hughes again.

Only three weeks ago Cohen left longtime mentor John Nicks, a respected California-based coach, and moved to Connecticut to train with Tatiana Tarasova, a Russian émigré who has worked with seven Olympic gold medalists, including the last two men's champions, Ilya Kulik and Alexei Yagudin. Cohen had an up-and-down relationship with Nicks, who had never guided a skater to an Olympic title and, at 73, seemed to have his last chance to do so with Cohen. In one breath, Nicks would speak of how Cohen drove him bonkers, calmly dismissing and defying his instructions; in the next, he would say how much her successes, such as a second-place finish behind Michelle Kwan at the 2000 U.S. Nationals, rekindled his love of coaching. Because Nicks worked at a rink where pleasure skaters often tooled around the ice and juniors were afforded equal time with elites, Cohen attributed much of her inconsistencies in competition to a lack of personalized attention. Nicks also reportedly insisted on representing his own athletes on any skating deals they signed; Cohen wanted a separate manager to handle that. The new atmosphere is different. Tarasova gives her three hours of one-on-one instruction each day, alternatively belting out suggestions in Russian and halting English.

With the help of Cohen's mother, Galina, a Ukrainian native acting as interpreter, backstage in New York, Tarasova gushed about working with Cohen: "She is a person with unusual talent," Tarasova said, "the kind of person who lights our life. Some people have a way to make others happy. She owns people who watch her. Only very gifted people can do that. She can get better -- better jumps, better expression especially. Right now she can skate a very wide spectrum, from very happy, light things to more serious programs."

Ask Galina Cohen if she thinks the change will be good for her daughter, and she says, "Well, the geography is different. No, I hope so. Sasha is happy here." Sasha herself called her recent time off in the summer, "a long wait psychologically. I'm in a place now where I feel I can really be at my best."

An inspiring return

There was a moving footnote to the commemorative program in New York. Last year at an exhibition to raise money for the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks, Joanna Glick was among the performers, taking the ice not long after the death of her older brother. Jeremy Glick, once an Olympic judo hopeful, was one of the passengers on Flight 93 who courageously prevented hijackers from crashing the plane into the U.S. Capitol by taking it down over an open field in Pennsylvania. Joanna, then 16, once placed as high as 10th at junior nationals, but she had stopped skating competitively to concentrate on school. Since the tragedies, she has become a tireless fundraiser for other teenagers and victims' families in her brother's memory. At the performance last year, Joanna Glick met Melissa Ielpi, whose brother Jonathan, a New York City firefighter, had also died in the attacks. Melissa, 24, grew up in Great Neck, N.Y., skating with Hughes but left the sport for a nursing career. Inspired by Glick, Ielpi took it upon herself to organize last Friday's exhibition, with proceeds going to families of victims of other crimes. Ielpi also skated a program that Glick introduced. "Skating again was a great release," Ielpi said. Glick added, "A way to let out the emotions and keep my brother's memory alive."

Sports Illustrated staff writer Brian Cazeneuve covers Olympic sports for the magazine and is a frequent contributor to CNNSI.com.

 

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