Turin – There’s plenty of good space on the Wheaties box still available.
When it was her cue to be strong and beautiful and inspirational, American figure skater Sasha Cohen fell on her derriere to the music of “Romeo and Juliet.”
“Another One Bites the Dust” by Queen would have been a more appropriate song choice.
With a chance to save the Winter Olympics for the United States and a star-starved audience falling asleep on the sofa back home, Cohen flubbed her chance to be America’s next golden girl.
There is no polite way of putting it.
Cohen choked.
The loneliest spot in sports is standing alone on the thin blade of figure skates at the Winter Games. When one mistake can ruin everything, the whole world holds its breath for more than four minutes. Say what you want about the sequins, but there’s not a moment of apprehension in the World Series or Super Bowl packed with more intense pressure.
“When you go out there, and you have all the people watching and you know what you want to do, and you know your practice hasn’t gone exactly right, it’s kind of hard to feel like you’re getting churros at Disneyland,” said Cohen, who led the competition after the short program but forgot how to have fun when it counted most.
Within 30 seconds after her performance began Thursday night, the dream was over, although the embarrassment, like the music, played on.
With nagging injuries and a wobbly warm-up worming into Cohen’s confidence, the first two major moves of her free program were crash and burn. She danced the Zamboni, mopping the ice with her bottom. An official Olympic sponsor should have bought advertising on the bottom of her skates.
Since the day Dick Button was born, the accepted response to a figure skating disaster is to groan and reach for a hankie. Has sports culture of America advanced far enough that female skaters who stink up the joint don’t have to be coddled like porcelain dolls?
NFL quarterback Peyton Manning can take a seat on the bench. No longer should he be considered the nation’s No. 1 example of an athlete who cannot win the big one.
Cohen is the most graceful skater on the planet. But when the pressure is on, she melts in a puddle.
When it came time to grab an Olympic championship that was hers for the taking, Cohen nervously squeezed both hands of coach John Nicks like a little kid scared to leave the house on the first day of school.
Her whole career has been defined by unfulfilled expectations. For too long, the 21-year-old Californian built a reputation as a head case who drove a string of coaches crazy and finished second in major competitions out of habit. The Olympic judges handed Cohen a silver medal, only because they didn’t have time to buy a sympathy card.
“The medals I have at home, I don’t even know where they are,” Cohen said. “They’re in shoe boxes and random places.”
For keeping the sunny side up, Shizuka Arakawa of Japan finished in first place, proving that sometimes 90 percent of Olympic greatness can be nothing more than standing up. She scaled back her most difficult jump combinations, admitting to playing it safe.
Anybody who was enthralled by this messy competition probably also attends NASCAR races for the wrecks. When Cohen and Russian Irina Slutskaya both spun out in fiery crashes, Arakawa took home gold by default.
“For me, I was surprised when I learned that for sure I would be getting a bronze, and then even more surprised when I was going to be getting a silver medal,” said Cohen, so bummed after bombing that she went backstage and began removing her costume, never thinking there would be a curtain call. “And it was just kind of like, ‘Oh, that’s nice.”‘
There she is. Miss Congeniality of the Winter Games.
On her exit from the Olympics, Cohen mentioned that she was famished.
Should have eaten her Wheaties.
Staff writer Mark Kiszla can be reached at 303-820-5438 or mkiszla@denverpost.com.
