They’re stacked like cordwood on a shelf somewhere, second-place trophies from around the world reminding Sasha Cohen that America’s glam queen of figure skating has so far to go.
Most skaters would like second-place finishes in the past two world championships and in four U.S. championships on their résumé. But as the calendar turns to 2006, a nation rubs its eyes after four years and once again focuses its attention on figure skating.
It’s another Olympic year and Cohen, 21, would like to silence critics, prove she has the fiber to be a champion and prove she’s not just a Vogue model who skates well. Skeptics say she can’t put together two clean programs in a row in a major competition. The more jaded ones come just short of calling her a choker.
It isn’t Cohen’s fault her rise to the international elite coincided with the peak of Michelle Kwan, America’s nine-time national champion and five-time world champion, and Irina Slutskaya, Russia’s defending world champion and the Olympic favorite.
This year, however, Cohen thinks the turmoil in her life has subsided enough for her to get out of the bridal party and finally walk down the aisle.
“This is one of my first years,” Cohen said, “where I’m on track and on target.”
She hasn’t seen a moving van in front of her home in a year, which is a good sign. She is back in her native Southern California with the coach who took her from the best junior skater on the West Coast to one of the best two or three in the world.
With Kwan recovering from a hip injury, Cohen has a legitimate shot at her first national title Jan. 14 in St. Louis and the first spot on the Olympic team.
“It’s great to have a home,” she said. “I’ve moved six times in the past three years. I have family and friends around California. It’s a great support system. I have to admit it’s easier to live in California than it is in New York City.”
In December 2002, she moved from longtime coach John Nicks and his rink in Aliso Viejo, Calif., to Connecticut, where she had more free ice time and worked under Russian master Tatiana Tarasova. She moved to New York the following December to work under Robin Wagner, who coached Sarah Hughes to the surprise Olympic gold in 2002. The East Coast experiment lasted two years.
She missed California. She missed Nicks, who will be coaching in his 11th Olympics since coming to the U.S. from England in 1961.
“Her mother called me, and I think she was perhaps a little apprehensive about my reaction,” Nicks said. “But I was very positive. I was only too pleased.”
But before they set about making a plan to topple Kwan and Slutskaya, Nicks laid down some rules. His word is law. Give a full commitment or he wasn’t interested.
“I think it’s no secret, growing up in her formative years we had a couple of go-rounds,” Nicks said. “Of course, when she came back, I was two years older. She was two years older and changed very much in maturity. She always trained hard but not as smart as I’d like her.
“She’s much smarter here.”
The relationship clicked like long-lost lovers who forgot how good they once had it.
Despite moving across country, despite boxes still unpacked, despite a change in coaches, Cohen had a remarkable 2005. She took another second – again to Kwan – at nationals last January and took second to Slutskaya at the worlds in Moscow.
Cohen skated a solid long program in Moscow, scoring 124.61 in the new scoring system, but couldn’t catch Slutskaya, who skated flawlessly in front of her delirious hometown crowd. Even after that, Cohen is fighting a reputation of being inconsistent.
“Everyone tries to pin that label on me as if, ‘Will she do two good programs?”‘ Cohen said. “I think it’s a little unfair. I will say honestly I haven’t skated often perfect programs back to back. But then again, not many have.”
The new scoring system, which puts more emphasis on spins and footwork rather than just jumps, has put Cohen and Nicks in overdrive. They have talked to dozens of judges and international experts who had an extra year under the system before the U.S. adopted it.
Her program was rechoreographed. Cohen has done as much research as Nicks.
“I’m going to do everything possible to make this happen,” she said. “I’m not going to let something like I didn’t pay attention to one rule or one spin.”
She appeared on pace for a banner Olympic year when she won the Campbell’s Classic in October and took second in a Grand Prix event in Paris in November.
She injured her groin and lost to Kwan at the Marshalls Challenge last month, when the audience voted on the final results. But with Kwan’s injury and with 16-year-old Kimmie Meissner and her triple axel a dark horse to win a medal in Turin, the U.S. meet is wide open.
Cohen is ready for anything. She certainly has the experience.
“In every athlete’s career there are highs and lows, and it’s the lows that make the highs great,” she said. “It’s when you don’t win (that) you learn about yourself and you learn lessons.”
John Henderson can be reached at 303-820-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com.
