This Final Four Is One Too Many

Two years ago, Sasha Cohen was a comet streaking through the figure skating universe to a second-place finish at the U.S. championships. A year after being grounded by a back injury, the sassy teenager from Laguna Niguel is again reaching for the stars--and a place on the U.S. Olympic team at the Salt Lake City Winter Games.

Cohen’s smooth, sprightly short program highlighted a superb afternoon of skating by the top U.S. women Thursday at Staples Center. Her rendition of “Sentimental Waltz” was an artistic and athletic success, landing her in second place behind defending champion Michelle Kwan after the first phase of the women’s competition.

Sarah Hughes, punished for her faulty technique on a jump takeoff, was third. Angela Nikodinov of San Pedro, luminous enough to earn the first-place vote of one judge and the hearts of the crowd, was fourth and must move up one place in Saturday’s long program to gain an Olympic berth. The long program is worth two-thirds of the final score.

Kwan won seven of nine first-place votes with a solid but somehow emotionally distant performance to Rachmaninoff. The crowd, hushed when she began her 2-minute 40-second routine, rose to its feet before she finished her final spin and roared its tribute to the 21-year-old Torrance native who grew up to become a five-time U.S. champion and four-time world champ.

“It’s encouraging to know I was able to skate so well,” said Kwan, who has been finding her way through a maze of changes on and off the ice this season, including a split with longtime coach Frank Carroll. “It’s nice to have that kind of performance, especially in L.A.”

But it was Cohen whose spark made a deeper emotional connection with the fans.

“My young protegee, the beautiful Ms. Cohen, when she skates like this, everything is forgiven,” said her coach, John Nicks.

What’s to forgive?

“You have no idea,” said Nicks, a dapper Englishman who, if pushed, acknowledges he enjoys sparring with the willful 17-year-old.

There was nothing for him to forgive Thursday. Skating last among the main contenders, Cohen faced the music and the pressure with elegance and determination.

“I didn’t see the other skaters,” said Cohen, whose marks ranged from 5.5 to 5.9 (out of a possible 6.0) for the required elements and from 5.7 to 5.9 for presentation. Those scores gave her one first-place vote, three seconds, three thirds and two fourths.

“I was just focusing on the pattern I had in my head of what I needed to do, and if I stuck to that, everything would work out.”

It was reminiscent of the performance that put her in the lead after the short program at the 2000 championships, her breakthrough moment.

“I guess there’s some similarities and some differences,” she said. “It was a great skate for me and I was pleased. It was one of my better performances and I don’t think I could have done much better. It’s different because it’s an Olympic year and I’m trying to get a place on the Olympic team.”

It’s a dramatic difference from last year’s national competition at Boston, where she was relegated to watching because she hadn’t recovered from a stress fracture in a vertebra.

“It was really difficult because I wanted to be out there,” she said. “I worked really hard [since then] and most of it has been rewarding.”

Kwan, who skated second in the 18-woman field, was rewarded for her grace with 5.7s and 5.8s for the required elements and 5.8s and 5.9s for presentation. The only fault she found with her ever-critical eye was a small wobble on the landing of her required double axel.

“There’s things I could make a little better, a little stronger,” she said. “There’s a lot of strong skaters, and I will have to skate well Saturday.”

Hughes, second at last year’s U.S. championships and third at the world competition, was radiant in her “Ave Maria” routine and brought tears to the eyes of her coach, Robin Wagner. However, the judges took a harsher view. They gave her two 5.5s and five 5.6s among her technical marks, apparently for taking off on the wrong edge for the first part of her triple lutz-double loop combination jump.

That sin, known as “flutzing” because the edge change turns a lutz into a flip, is fairly common. However, expectations are higher for Hughes after her victory over Kwan at Skate Canada earlier this season, and she’s being held to higher standards.

“This is the best short program I’ve done this season,” she said. “The jumps and each element were more complete....

“Robin kept telling me, ‘Sparkle. Be an angel.’ Today I really felt right there.”

Nikodinov, still recovering from the death in November of her mentor and coach, Elena Tcherkasskaia, was the crowd’s emotional favorite. And her performance to “No One Gives Up on Love,” was touching and technically sound. Aside from the first-place vote she got from judge Jeffrey Wolf of Seattle, she got two second-place votes and one third-place vote. She also got five fourth-place votes, enough to put her behind Hughes in the scramble for the three Olympic berths but not so far back as to put the Olympics beyond her grasp.

“It’s a big relief, but I just have to keep focused,” she said of getting through the potentially treacherous short program. “I’ve been through a lot, but I always expected to skate well.... I’m just real proud of the way I’ve handled everything.”

Tcherkasskaia’s widower, Leonid, watched Nikodinov’s performance Thursday, a comforting reminder for Nikodinov of the woman she considered a second mother. “I know she’s looking down on me and is proud of me,” she said.