Turin, Italy 2006 Winter Olympic Games

Olympic Figure Skating Analysis

TURIN, Italy – She squeezed her coach's hands and then skated off toward the biggest four minutes of her life. And right then you could see it.

The smile never lies with Sasha Cohen. She is no robot skater. She is all or nothing, wearing her heart on her sequins, and this time it looked forced, this time it looked fearful. And that really was all it took to finish her.

Sasha Cohen fell twice in the first minute of her free skate here Thursday and wound up falling to a silver medal, behind Japan's brilliant Shizuka Arakawa. The only surprise was that Cohen wound up so high.

There is no more pressure-packed moment in athletic competition than the ladies' free skate at the Olympics.

They trot out these tiny women on this big ice, with bright lights and a world watching, and there is only one goal – perfection. Anything else – no matter how slight the error, no matter how small the misstep – and you wind up back in your dressing room, stunned, shocked and saddened, changing out of your dress, as Cohen did, because, "I definitely didn't think I was going to get any medal."

There are no timeouts. There are no second chances, no second strikes. You can't bloop single your way to Olympic gold. There is no one to block for you, no one to pass to. There is ultimately no one and nothing but yourself to blame.

Once you are on, you had better be on. And Sasha Cohen knew, deep down, she wasn't going to be on. She had stumbled through her jumps during two warmup sessions, and now all that confidence, all that charisma which had vaulted the 21-year-old Californian to first place in the short program was gone.

Now it was doubt that was crashing all around her. Her face looked blank.

"I think I was probably not nervous, but probably apprehensive knowing that I missed the Lutz and the loop in the warmups," she said.

That sliver of apprehension was all it took in this meat grinder of a competition – four minutes of perfection, taking down another athlete. They should rename this thing "last woman standing" because if you can be that person, you just might win gold.

"The new system is so demanding and so different," said Cohen's coach, John Nicks. "I've taught for 45 years, and in the last two years I've had to redo my whole philosophy and thinking."

For Cohen that slow slide to start her program said it all. Before the short program she took the ice with a look-at-me attitude, beaming her smile into the stands, making direct eye contact with the stern-faced judges. Thursday she mustered neither.

"When you go out there and you have all these people watching and you know what you want to do, you know that your practice hasn't gone exactly right, it's kind of hard to think you're getting churros at Disneyland," Cohen said, smiling.

She never stood a chance after that. She skated and fell to the theme to "Romeo and Juliet," doomed young dreamers themselves.

The whole thing came as a shock to Cohen, who despite a history of free-skate failures arrived Thursday at Palavela full of confidence. She had skipped practice the day before to rest. She had taken enough pain medication and received enough treatment to make minor injuries irrelevant.

She had skated strong in a morning practice. She had waited her entire life for this. The gold, her gold was there for the taking.

"I felt in a good place," she said. "I was just as surprised as [anyone]."

Post-competition, she tried to put a good face on a painful disappointment. She had quickly changed back into her dress when it became apparent that she would wind up on the medal stand. She was stunned when Russia's Irina Slutskaya fell during a jump and dropped into third.

At the press conference she smelled her bouquet of flowers and talked about heading to the World Championships next month in Calgary, where perhaps that elusive gold in a major international event would happen.

She was asked if she would be remembered as a brilliant short program skater, who always failed in the long.

She bristled, a bit, at the question, at the concept. "I'm a stronger athlete than that," she said, perking up. She wouldn't let it hang out there.

"I would never let myself believe that," she said.

She meant that, too. You could see it. By then the intensity had returned, the nerves of steel, the mental toughness and supreme confidence that it takes just to reach this level, just to compete in the most intense four minutes imaginable.

It was, of course, too late for Sasha Cohen. Too late, for tonight.

Updated on Thursday, Feb 23, 2006 8:30 pm, EST

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