Cohen Set for Return to Utah

Figure skater Sasha Cohen of Laguna Niguel, who left Salt Lake City after the opening ceremony to train at home, will return Friday and will resume practicing on Olympic ice Saturday.

Her coach, John Nicks, said Tuesday her practices at Aliso Viejo have been going well and added they planned to work at altitude in Lake Arrowhead on Tuesday and today to reinforce her conditioning.

Nicks also said the only change in her programs will be doing the triple lutz-triple toe loop combination jump she didn’t do in her long program in finishing second to Michelle Kwan at last month’s U.S. championships.

“Most of the girls have the triple-triple combination, although most are not secure,” he said. “Doing that could be the difference for a medal.”

Kwan is the only member of the U.S. women’s delegation who stayed in Salt Lake City this week for practices. Sarah Hughes, third at the U.S. nationals, has been skating in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Returning home to train in familiar surroundings has worked out well, Nicks said.

“The fact of the matter is you’re never as comfortable as you are training at your home base, under conditions you’re used to,” he said. “I think the Olympic village is a wonderful experience for kids, but sometimes it’s not the best place to be when you’ve got to focus on training.”

Helene Elliott

*

Steroid levels 1,000 times the limit were found in a Latvian bobsledder allowed to compete at the Olympics despite a failed drug test and a series of moves to ban him.

Dr. Christiane Ayot, whose IOC-accredited lab in Montreal ran the test, said the international bobsled federation apparently ignored the results when it imposed a retroactive three-month ban on Sandis Prusis. The ban ended just before Olympic competition.

“I believe they had already made up their mind” and accepted Prusis’ argument that the drug was contained in legal food supplements, said Ayot, who is helping the International Olympic Committee’s medical commission during the Winter Games.

She also said the chance that Prusis absorbed such a high amount of the drug in contaminated supplements was very small.

Robert Storey, president of the bobsled federation FIBT, said Ayot’s claim that his group ignored the results was “absolutely untrue.”

Though he would not comment on the exact levels of the steroid in Prusis’ sample, he said independent experts told the FIBT that it was possible the drug in the amounts found came from tainted food supplements.

Latvian Olympic and bobsled officials earlier indicated that the level of nandrolone found in Prusis’ sample was only slightly above the limit of two nanograms per milliliter.

Associated Press