You Can Count on These Women to Slip--Not

It’s an exaggeration to say 17-year-old Sasha Cohen has tried more quadruple jumps than 30-year-old Todd Eldredge, newly crowned men’s U.S. champion. But not by much.

At these U.S. Figure Skating Championships at Staples Center, it has been the women who have skated with more guts and more authority and who proved again why women’s figure skating rules the Winter Olympics.

Until Thursday afternoon, the enormousness of the occasion (the U.S. championships, which are the Olympic trials) combined with the playing field (ice) and the elements (jumping on ice) had mostly equaled pratfalls.

But Thursday, four potential champions performed. They packed away their nerves, they hid their insecurities, they camouflaged their fears. They did what great athletes do. They shone brightly.

It hadn’t been this way in these championships. Big men had fallen, in the pairs and short programs. Smaller men--lots of them--fell, in the men’s short and long programs. Even some of the ice dancing men tripped, and they don’t even have to jump, or throw or catch anything.

Then came the women, some looking as tiny as feathers, floating airily along the ice (that’s if you’re sitting up top at Staples). And they didn’t fall. They hardly stumbled. There was no plopping or flopping or sloppiness.

The top seven women performed their short programs nearly to perfection, without big mistakes. The short program is the technical part of the competition. There are eight elements that must be completed. Various jumps, spins, twirls and footwork must be done precisely. One slip on a double axel and it might be goodbye Olympics.

These women didn’t slip, though.

Among the favorites, Michelle Kwan skated first, with fierce determination and the iron caution that comes with being the chosen one, the skater who will be considered a failure by too many people if she doesn’t win a gold medal in Salt Lake City.

Four years ago in Philadelphia, Kwan skated to the same Rachmaninoff piano concerto that brought her seven perfect 6.0 scores at the Olympic trials and brought many fans to tears with the beauty of the performance.

The freedom Kwan felt in Philadelphia has been swallowed up by growing up, by the continual fight against younger, less burdened challengers. But she was a professional Friday, a Randy Johnson, throwing a fastball a straight one, but heat just the same, just going out and doing the job. The crowd rose at the end of the performance when Kwan completed her silky spiral sequence.

It would not be the only time the crowd stood.

Angela Nikodinov, the quiet woman from San Pedro who has too often been tortured by self-doubt and unwilling to believe in her special athletic talent, exhibited uncommon grace and landed a perfect triple lutz, launched off the correct edge of the skate, which few women do. The spectators knew of Nikodinov’s sadness, the mourning over the recent and sudden death of her coach, Elena Tcherkasskaia, and again rose to applaud Nikodinov’s strength in her nearly flawless performance.

Sarah Hughes, the 16-year-old from New York, has fought for two years to earn the international opinion that, with her tough triple-triple jump combinations and great speed, she was an equal of Kwan and Russia’s Irina Slutskaya, the Olympic favorites. Her sturdy nerves brought tears to the eyes of her coach, Robin Wagner.

“I was trying to stay really cool, but it was so nice to see,” Wagner said. “It was so beautiful and she looked so gentle but so sure of herself on the ice.”

And finally, skating in the final group, was the last of the four women considered to be in a fight for three Olympic spots--Cohen, the 17-year-old from Laguna Niguel.

It was as if someone took a giant breath and gave her a gentle push. That’s all it took to propel Cohen, wearing white and skating to a waltz, lightly along the ice. Her spins and extension moves were performed with delicate grace; her jumps landed with authority.

Cohen, who missed much of last season because of a fracture in her back, has suffered from jittery performances in important competitions and heard whispers about her strength and toughness.

But as her coach, John Nicks, picked up the 4-foot-11 Cohen and swung her around, the crowd rose again and didn’t sit for several seconds.

The final scores had Kwan first followed by Cohen, Hughes and Nikodinov. Seven judges had Kwan first, one picked Cohen, one picked Nikodinov.

On this afternoon, there was no wrong choice. It is the nature of this figure skating community to pick apart the champions. So there were some who nitpicked about Kwan’s remoteness and wished for more pure joy. Others pointed to Hughes’ flawed triple lutz, the one with the leg wrap and the entry off the wrong edge. It’s called a “flutz,” and when Hughes got some technical marks as low as 5.5, it seemed the judges might be demanding a better lutz.

To quote Dick Button, the voice of the sport, “Who cares?”

Said Wagner: “I think this was probably the most exciting group of short programs, even going back to the world championships. Everybody really skated with their hearts, and in this particular competition, when we’re trying to get on the Olympic team, that’s an extraordinary feat.”

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Diane Pucin can be reached at diane.pucin@latimes.com.