Her Warmup Act Should Be Over

SALT LAKE CITY â€”  Sasha Cohen slipped back into town Friday night under the cover of darkness.

Quick! Lock up the women and children.

Cohen stands 4 feet 11 on her tiptoes and weighs 90 pounds, but before the Winter Olympics opened nine days ago she was casting a giant shadow over the figure skating competition.

“Queen, Sweetheart, Villain,� shouted the headline in one newspaper over a story featuring the three women representing the United States.

The queen, of course, is Michelle Kwan.

The sweetheart is Sarah Hughes.

Guess which role that leaves for Cohen.

What did she do to deserve this wicked reputation?

Not much, really. During the warmup before the freestyle program in the U.S. championships last month at Staples Center, she and Kwan brushed against each other. If a police officer had been following them, he would have given a ticket to Cohen.

It wouldn’t have been her first. That might have been the first accident that she caused, but she is well known among the other skaters for her recklessness during practices.

“Watch out, Sasha,� is a common refrain.

Some might believe she is too aggressive. If so, she wouldn’t be the first in her sport. Anett Poetzsch, who won the gold medal for East Germany in 1980, was like a freight train on the ice, yielding to no one.

France’s Surya Bonaly once did a back flip in Midori Ito’s face during a practice. Ito responded the next day by performing three double axels in a circle around Bonaly.

Oksana Baiul was another who never stepped aside for anyone else, causing a frightening collision with Germany’s Tanja Szewczenko during a practice the day before the women’s final eight years ago in Lillehammer.

Katarina Witt was the toughest competitor of all, although her actions fell more into the category of passive aggressive. She infuriated her rivals during practices by skating her program to their music, then stood against the sideboards and glared at them when she was off the ice. They so were intimidated they almost melted.

But those who know Cohen, 17, from Laguna Niguel, contend she actually isn’t very aggressive. They say it’s more likely that she’s self-absorbed. She’s not always aware of where the other skaters are on the ice because she’s not paying attention to them.

“It would be really silly if I try to follow other skaters because I wouldn’t get my stuff in and we can get hurt,� she says. “I just focus on myself.�

If it makes the other skaters feel better, she doesn’t pay any attention to John Nicks, either.

Asked after practice Saturday if Cohen had added anything new to her program, her coach shrugged and said, “She hasn’t told me about anything.�

No one was injured last month in Los Angeles, and although Kwan said she was unnerved by the near-collision, she skated superbly and won her sixth national championship.

End of story.

Not quite.

Some in the media made much ado about the incident at Staples Center, and, although it might seem as if there is not much of an explanation for it, I believe I have one.

They missed Tonya Harding.

When the Olympics began, it had been eight long, mostly tedious years in the figure skating world since l’affaire Tonya-Nancy, and it appeared as if the only way to re-create that adrenaline rush was to create a good-vs.-evil scenario.

We needed a black swan.

Tara Lipinski had been too cute, Kwan too regal, Hughes too sweet. Even the Russian contenders, Irina Slutskaya and Maria Butyrskaya, were nice. Cohen, who had been the sweetheart two years ago when she emerged as a surprise runner-up to Kwan in the national championships, would have to play the bad girl.

Then the sport of figure skating, as it does occasionally, rushed to the rescue, providing an even juicier melodrama. This one involved the intrigue of the old Cold War rivalry between the West Bloc and the East Bloc, clandestine meetings, allegations of a swindle, a femme fatale French judge, an emotional deathbed confession (OK, I made that part up for the sure-to-come TV movie) and--voila!--figure skating is back on the front pages.

So Cohen, who left Salt Lake City after the opening ceremony to resume training at Lake Arrowhead, arrived back in town quietly. She was in a practice group Saturday afternoon with Kwan, Hughes and a Japanese skater and not only did nothing happen, there were hardly any media there to witness it not happen.

It’s no longer the story.

In fact, it never was.

Cohen and Nicks have been trying to tell us that for a month.

So has Kwan.

“People tend to look at things in detail, particularly the media,� she said here last week. “First, it was that I was coachless, which was a big deal--a big deal for me. Then it’s the warmups, which weren’t.�

Let’s move on to a real drama, such as whether Anton and Elena will stand on the victory podium next to Jamie and David when they all receive their gold medals tonight.

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Randy Harvey can be reached at [email protected].