Kwan Brushes Off Young Challengers

John Nicks could hide behind his dark glasses.

The figure skating coach could hide his joy from teary-eyed Naomi Nari Nam and he could hide is sadness from ecstatic Sasha Cohen.

It is not easy to coach two tiny girls who both want to win Olympic gold medals, who both expect to win Olympic gold medals, who both yearn to be the best figure skater in the world.

Cohen, a 15-year-old piece of fluff, so small it seems the music blows her across the ice, tumbling, twisting, leaping, floating, capped her coming out party at the U.S. Figure Skating national championships by missing only one jump and winning a silver medal Saturday night. Cohen, who is only 4 feet 9 inches tall and might be exaggerating when she says she weighs 79 pounds, had never skated at the senior national championships. A year ago Cohen, who is a 10th-grader from Laguna Niguel, was silver medalist in the junior competition, which is watched by a few hundred people instead of the 15,435 who were at Gund Arena Saturday night.

But the huge crowds only put a sparkle in Cohen’s eyes and some rosy red in her cheeks. Not for a minute did Cohen feel she didn’t belong on that awards podium with her hero, gold medalist Michelle Kwan.

Cohen skated second-to-last among the 20 competitors in Saturday night’s 4-minute 20-second long program. Drawing the last spot was 14-year-old Nam. Cohen and Nam train together under Nicks at the Ice Chalet in Costa Mesa. A year ago it was Nam who was the bright-eyed, big-smiling, tiny-tot sensation who came from nowhere to finish second behind Kwan.

As Cohen skated off, Nam gave Cohen a hug. It was a sweet moment between two teenagers who must try to be friends and who must become enemies during competitions, who must get along every day in a cold rink tucked into a strip mall where they drag themselves in before the sun is up and where they both want to win everything all the time. This was a sweet gesture, a moment of genuine caring.

But then Nam finished an exhausting season that has been filled with pressure and too many falls with a shaky performance that included two bad falls and only three landed triple jumps.

The Irvine daughter of an airline engineer, the granddaughter of a South Korean speed skater, Nam launched her first jump as if she were propelled by jet fuel. The double axel was high, too high almost. Nam landed that jump and she smiled. There would be no more smiles in this program, though.

Her next planned jump was the triple lutz, the most difficult of the triple jumps in Nam’s program. It has confounded her all season. Again Nam got high in the air and then landed--but not on her feet. “It looked perfect in the air,” Nicks said afterward. “But I never felt my legs were right under me,” Nam said. Nam ended up in eighth place, three spots lower than where she had started the evening.

Instead it was the lyrical grace and determined jumping of Cohen that brought the crowd to its feet for the only standing ovation of the evening.

Cohen, skating to a light, dreamy violin concerto by Mendelssohn, made only one mistake. It came in the final 30 seconds of her program when she took a solid fall on her sixth triple jump, the triple toe. No one had skated perfectly, though.

Kwan had fallen on a triple loop and Sarah Hughes, the 14-year-old bronze medalist from Great Neck, N.Y., tumbled hard on her triple salchow.

Cohen was thrilled with her silver medal. She said she was a little tired when she got to that last jump. She also said Kwan should have won. “Michelle has the reputation,” Cohen said. “She’s an Olympic and world medalist. I don’t have a reputation.” Nicks tapped Cohen on the shoulder. “You have a reputation,” Nicks said. “Just not the same reputation.”

All week Nicks has tweaked Cohen. He says she is undisciplined, that she is unpredictable, that she, frankly, can drive him crazy.

And now Cohen will have the most intensely pressure-filled month of her young career. This silver medal earns her a chance to compete for the U.S. World Championship team. Maybe.

Cohen is technically too young to represent the United States even though the top three skaters from these nationals should be going to Nice, France, at the end of March. Cohen didn’t make the age cut, just as Nam was too young last year for the spot she seemed to have earned.

But Cohen is getting a chance Nam didn’t have. Last year there was no junior world championship scheduled before the senior worlds. This year, the Junior World Championships take place March 5-12 in Germany. Cohen, along with 16-year-old Deanna Stellato and 16-year-old Jennifer Kirk, will compete at these junior worlds. If Cohen medals again, she will be allowed to compete 10 days later at the Senior Worlds. No one has ever done this double before, not in such a short time span.

If Cohen has a difficult month coming up, Nicks has a difficult two years. The 70-year-old coach has two skating gems in his palm. Rumors have started already that one or the other, Cohen or Nam, will leave Nicks, that it is too difficult to give two such talented skaters the attention each will need until the 2002 Olympics. Nicks says that’s nonsense. He says that the daily competition is a boost to each girl.

We’ll see.

Nam did have some words of advice for Cohen, though. Having lived through a season of intense scrutiny, of sudden and great expectations and precipitous falls, here’s what Nam wants to tell the new national silver medalist.

“Don’t experience this the way I did,” Nam said.

Behind Nam, Cohen was accepting congratulations from Dick Button, TV commentator, and Frank Carroll, Kwan’s coach. Nam accepted a hug from Nicks and then walked away alone.

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Diane Pucin can be reached at her e-mail address: diane.pucin@latimes.com