Cohen Probably Won’t Attempt Historic Leap

Figure skater Sasha Cohen of Laguna Niguel, who has missed several attempts to become the first woman to land a quadruple jump in competition, probably won’t try her quadruple salchow at the U.S. championships next month at Staples Center.

Cohen isn’t succeeding often enough in practice to be sure she can land it under pressure--and the pressure will be intense at the national competition. Cohen will vie with four-time world champion and five-time U.S. champion Michelle Kwan, 2001 U.S. silver medalist Sarah Hughes and 2001 U.S. bronze medalist Angela Nikodinov for three women’s singles berths on the Salt Lake City team, making the quad a strategy call: If Cohen is in the top three after the short program, she might not take a chance with the quad in the long program. But if she’s not in the top three, she might throw it in and hope the technical difficulty helps her.

“Right now, it’s not the percentage I want it to be,” said her coach, John Nicks. “I do think she’s understanding that the program she puts out at nationals has to be a good one, without errors, to make the Olympic team.

“We’ll see what happens. If the quad gets secure, we’ll see. You try to reduce those risky elements.”

Nicks doesn’t buy the perception that Kwan and Hughes are virtually guaranteed Olympic spots, leaving Cohen and Nikodinov to fight for third.

“I look at it as Sasha has the ability to be as good as the first two,” he said. “Sasha thinks she always can win anything.

“She regularly asks me what she has to do to win. I tell her two clean programs gives her a shot. Most of those top four, Michelle, Sarah and Sasha, have very similar content. At times they’ve all tried triple-triples with varied success, but the rest is the same content. It could come down to who on that night skates a clean program.”