In the hunt

Cohen in third after fabulous program, Hughes in fourth

Sasha Cohen executed spirals that rivaled Michelle Kwan's. AP

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- When Sasha Cohen took the ice, a feeling of calm washed over her.

There were no butterflies, no nerves, no rookie jitters. There's nowhere she'd rather be than on the ice, especially Olympic ice.

"My Olympic moment was finally here," she said. "To skate as well as I did is part of a dream come true."

She's in good shape to accomplish the second part of her dream, too.

Cohen is in third place after electrifying the crowd with a fabulous short program Tuesday night. A performance like that in Thursday night's free skate, and she'll have a shiny souvenir to bring home from her trip to Salt Lake City.

Fellow American Michelle Kwan won the short program, and Sarah Hughes was fourth.

"Anything can happen," Cohen said. "And I'm just happy to be a part of it."

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Especially considering where she was a year ago. A stress fracture in her back kept the 17-year-old out of the U.S. championships and off the world championship team. While the experience is vital for a skater her age, the face time with international judges is even more important in the year before the Olympics.

"It was a really frustrating experience," Cohen said. "But I just persevered, and I never thought that I couldn't do it. I had a goal, the Olympics."

And from the moment she stepped onto the rink at the Salt Lake Ice Center, she looked as if she owned the place. She oozed confidence and fearlessness.

Not even the raucous response from the pro-U.S. crowd could shake her.

"I feel in complete control on the ice," she said. "That's where I can do what I love. When I'm off the ice, WHOO! Once I'm out there, I really enjoy it."

It showed. Her jumps were solid, and she had more speed than most of the top skaters. But it was her beauty and presence that really set her apart. Coach John Nicks has said it's impossible to put her in an ugly position, that she even falls gracefully.

He's right. Her spirals were exquisite, particularly the Charlotte spiral, where she virtually glides in the splits, her nose touching her shin. While other skaters simply land their jumps, she finishes them with the grace of a ballerina.

"She's a very unique person whose talents transcend the technical elements," Nicks said. "She's really at the beginning of her career, which is really scary."

While it's usually tough for someone with Cohen's limited experience to break into the leaders' club at the Olympics, the headstrong teen-ager has always done things her own way.

Her marks left her behind only Kwan and Russia's Irina Slutskaya, and the scores might have been a little higher if she hadn't skated sixth.

Hughes has the resume Cohen lacks, but it didn't help her Tuesday night. Skating fifth, the 16-year-old was clearly nervous and needed a few extra seconds to compose herself after a loud ovation from the crowd.

"If I started right away, it would have thrown me off a little," Hughes said. "So I needed to refocus."

The extra time didn't help much. She was much slower than usual, and didn't have her normal spark. She hit every element, although her triple lutz-double toe loop combination was technically flawed and she barely held the landing of her triple flip.

But midway through the 2-minute, 40-second program, she was done with her jumps and smiling broadly. When she finished, she clapped her hands and pumped her fists, then skated off the ice and into a big hug from coach Robin Wagner.

"It was certainly a strong skate," Wagner said. "I was proud of her for going out there at the Olympic Games and looking fairly secure."

Hughes is going to have to do more than that if she wants to match or better the bronze medal she won at the world championships last spring. But Hughes insists she's not worrying about a medal.

She's here to have fun, she says, just as bronze medalist Timothy Goebel did.

"Tim and I had lunch together yesterday and he just told me, `You're prepared, don't worry,'" she said. "It's our first Olympics. I'm still young and I have time.

"He said, `Don't think this is the Olympics. Just go out, enjoy it and have fun.'"

 

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