Skater Nagasu shines

Sasha Cohen was the headliner. And she put on a brilliant show.

Yet Mirai Nagasu upstaged Cohen on the judges’ scorecards, which provided an accurate reflection of Thursday’s short program at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships.

Nagasu “must have been pretty good to beat that performance,” said Cohen’s coach, John Nicks.

Nagasu was, winning the short program with 70.06 points. Cohen was second at 69.63 and Rachael Flatt third at 69.35, leaving all in strong position to earn one of the two spots on the Olympic team.

Flatt was 6.8 points ahead of Ashley Wagner, who finished fourth despite falling on a triple lutz and probably out of the Olympic picture.

Cohen, 25, of Corona del Mar, in her first competition since the 2006 world championships, silenced the naysayers who called her comeback an attempt to garner publicity, especially after she withdrew from two planned Grand Prix events because of a calf injury last fall.

“A lot of people doubted me and wrote me off,” said Cohen, the 2006 Olympic silver medalist, who soaked in the ovation after a performance in which she clearly held back to avoid the big error that would have knocked her from contention before Saturday’s free skate.

The landings on her two triple jumps were wobbly but successful. Once the jumping passes were out of the way, Cohen glided into spirals and spins that transfixed both the audience and the judges, who gave her the highest component (artistic) scores.

“When I was injured and skating awful, you want to be here but you are how you feel that day,” Cohen said. “I believed in myself because I had some great moments and great days in training, and I was able to keep putting them together and get confidence enough to be here.”

Nagasu, 16, simply blew the doors off the Spokane Arena with solid jumps, spins that seemed as if they’d go on all night and beautiful body positions on almost every element.

And Nagasu, of Arcadia, doesn’t even think she is considered a contender for the Olympic team -- based on what she reads on the Internet.

“I wasn’t even considered a candidate for the Olympics,” she said. “I’m just here to show myself and everyone that I’m the future of the USA. I just hope to grow from there.

“The U.S. is not on top of figure skating right now. I think that’s an embarrassment because of the rich history the U.S. has.”

Flatt, 17, had hanging landings on some jumps but pulled off a triple-triple combination and a very solid program.

“I look at her the same as I do the other competitors,” Flatt said of Cohen. “She’s a fierce competitor, and she has obviously proved herself several times over.”

Reigning champion Alissa Czisny had her Olympic hopes disappear after barely 30 seconds, when she fell on her opening jump, a triple lutz. She then doubled the next planned triple, and all her grace on the spins that followed was wasted.

Cohen finished second in her first U.S. championships a decade ago. Now her rivals talk about looking up to her when they were 10 years old.

“I have a decade on everybody,” she said. “As you get older, you enjoy things that seem like tough situations.”

Now she has a good chance at a third Olympics.

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phersh@tribune.com