Athlete vs. Artist

From their first encounter, when John Nicks was giving lessons at a skating rink wedged inside a Costa Mesa strip mall and Sasha Cohen was an energetic tyke who nearly knocked him down as she buzzed around the ice, Nicks knew their relationship would be unique.

“Interesting. And changeable. And challenging and satisfactory and giving me a lot of wonderful times,” he said of the journey that has brought them to the brink of collaborating on an Olympic title.

The last step toward that gold medal has been as attention-grabbing as the first.

Cohen, who will carry a lead of three-hundredths of a point over Russian Irina Slutskaya into today’s long program, caused a buzz Wednesday when she was the only top contender to skip an official practice at the Palavela arena. Her agent, Lee Marshall, said Cohen “has had issues with a groin off and on all season,” but said she hadn’t suffered a new injury.

Cohen put an ice pack on her right leg after her riveting short program Tuesday but deflected questions about it by saying, “Ice is maintenance when you get to be my age.”

The Corona del Mar resident is 21 but has competed on the senior level for seven seasons and has a history of back problems.

“She’s just trying to pace herself,” Marshall said. “She’s been getting therapy on her leg, nothing different than before. It’s part of what she deals with.”

Cohen missed the 2001 U.S. championships and 2004-05 Grand Prix season because of back injuries and withdrew from the Skate America competition in October because of a hip injury. She recovered to finish second at a Grand Prix event in Paris in November and win her first national title in St. Louis in January.

She earned 66.73 points for her short program on Tuesday, to 66.70 for Slutskaya and 66.02 for Japan’s Shizuka Arakawa.

Kimmie Meissner of Bel Air, Md., fifth with 59.40 points, might grab a medal if the leaders falter, but Emily Hughes of Great Neck, N.Y., would need the performance of a lifetime and the collapse of several rivals to move into the mix after she earned 57.08 points for her short program and placed seventh.

“I think anything is possible, and I think I have a good shot. I think everybody in the last group does,” Meissner said, referring to the top six skaters. “I’m going to try to think about my skate. I’m not worried about the results. But it would be nice.”

Cohen has been chasing a medal since she finished fourth at Salt Lake City, a disappointment after she’d performed the third-best short program. She fell in her final routine and finished behind Sarah Hughes, Emily’s older sister; Slutskaya; and Michelle Kwan.

Nicks said that he saw Cohen for brunch and that they agreed she should skip the practice because she’d had difficulty sleeping after her stunning performance Tuesday. He described her as happy and relaxed but tired, and said he didn’t think missing a practice would hinder her today. He said she planned to practice this morning.

“She’s trained very hard. Stamina is not a problem with her,” he said. “And she knows the programs backward and thought she’d better rest today.

“She has occasional muscle problems and uses a lot of ice, as athletes do. There’s nothing untoward about it.”

Although Cohen’s absence raised some eyebrows, 1960 Olympic champion Carol Heiss Jenkins, who coaches eighth-place Miki Ando of Japan, said it was not unheard of for a skater to skip a practice before such a big moment.

“I think it’s however the skater feels in the body, and she’s probably done this before,” she said. “It just depends on the skater. If they’re tired, you want to reserve. Maybe it’s not even tired, just being here with everyone, you know. My skaters take Saturday and Sunday off, and some of them skate gloriously on Monday.”

Nicks, 76, has coached an array of singles and pairs skaters at 11 Olympics after teaming with his sister, Jennifer, to compete for Britain in the 1948 and 1952 Games as a pairs skater. He said that Cohen, who left him in 2002 to work with Tatiana Tarasova and Robin Wagner but returned to him late in 2004, led him to revise his coaching philosophy.

“I’ve trained a lot of skaters and I made a lot of mistakes when I started to train, 60, 70, years ago,” he said, wryly. “I used to treat them all very much the same, John Nicks’ way, and I found out that that’s not right.

“These very talented young people are all different and therefore need to be treated differently to get the best out of them. And Sasha and I have known each other a long time, and I think we have an understanding of what is good for her and what can produce good results.”

American women have won figure skating medals in the last 10 Olympics, since Peggy Fleming won the gold medal at the 1968 Grenoble Games. The U.S. women were blanked in 1964, three years after the U.S. team was killed in a plane crash en route to Prague, Czechoslovakia, for the world championships.

Slutskaya, 27, is attempting to complete a historic Russian sweep of the four figure skating disciplines. She’s a two-time world champion and three-time Olympian who is known for her jumping ability more than her expressiveness.

Heiss Jenkins said Cohen’s edge lies in her artistry, which translates to high program component scores. Each skater gets a total element score for spins, spirals and other moves and a second program component score for skating skills, transitions, performance and execution, choreography and composition, and interpretation.

“I think, for example, maybe Sasha could miss something but has such a wonderful second mark,” Heiss Jenkins said. “I think Slutskaya’s strength is her athleticism and her smile, and of course Arakawa has that wonderful softness and way about her.”

Like Cohen, Heiss Jenkins in 1960 was the leader entering the final phase of the competition. Heiss Jenkins said their situations aren’t the same because the free skate counted less toward the final score in her era, but she said she could imagine what Cohen was thinking.

“Knowing Sasha, it’s probably more of an attitude of, ‘OK, this is going to be my Olympics.’ In ’60 that’s a little bit how I turned it around,” she said. “It was, ‘All right, I want this to be mine.’ You have to think that way. It isn’t conceit, it’s self-confidence and you have to tell yourself that. You just have to feel that way.”

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

The finale

Women’s figure skating will be televised from 8 p.m. to midnight PST on Channel 4:

SASHA COHEN

United States

*--* Points after short program: 66.73

*--*

IRINA SLUTSKAYA

Russia

*--* Points after short program: 66.70

*--*

SHIZUKA ARAKAWA

Japan

*--* Points after short program: 66.02

*--*

FUMIE SUGURI

Japan

*--* Points after short program: 61.75

*--*

KIMMIE MEISSNER

United States

*--* Points after short program: 59.40

*--*

E. GEDEVANISHVILI

Georgia

*--* Points after short program: 57.90

*--*

EMILY HUGHES

United States

*--* Points after short program: 57.08

*--*

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Cohen versus Slutskaya

Long-program elements of Sasha Cohen, above, to Prokofiev’s “Romeo and Juliet” as done at the U.S. championships, and how the judges scored it (BV -- base value; GE -- grade of execution; SP -- scores of panel; *Occurs in the second half of the program, so score is multiplied by 1.1):

*--* Element BV GE SP Triple lutz-double toe 8.8 1.0 9.8 loop-double loop Triple flip 5.5 86 6.36 Triple loop 5.0 43 5.43 Spin combination w/ 3.5 64 4.14 change of position and change of foot level 4 Layback spin level 4 2.4 86 3.26 Triple flip-double toe loop* 7.5 14 7.64 Triple toe loop-steps-triple salchow* 7.5 -2.43 5.07 Flying sit spin level 4 3.0 21 3.21 Double axel* 3.6 86 4.46 Circular steps level 3 3.1 71 3.81 Spiral steps level 4 3.4 2.71 6.11 Triple salchow* 5.0 71 5.71 Spin combination w/ 3.0 79 3.79 change of position and change of foot level 3

*--*

Total element score 68.79

Program component score 65.24

Total score for long program 134.03

Long-program elements of Irina Slutskaya, above, to a flamenco medley as performed at the European championships, and how the judges scored it (BV -- base value; GE -- grade of execution; SP -- scores of panel; *Occurs in the second half of the program, so score is multiplied by 1.1):

*--* Element BV GE SP Triple lutz-double loop 7.5 71 8.21 Triple salchow-double 7.3 43 7.73 loop-double toe loop Flying camel spin level 4 3.0 43 3.43 Triple flip 5.5 -1.14 4.36 Layback spin level 4 2.4 64 3.04 Spiral steps level 3 3.1 29 3.39 Triple flip-double toe loop* 7.5 71 8.21 Triple loop* 5.5 86 6.36 Triple toe loop* 4.4 43 4.83 Spin combination w/ 2.5 14 2.64 change of position Double axel* 3.6 57 4.17 Straight line steps level 2 2.3 36 2.66 Spin combination w/ 3.5 79 4.29 change of position and change of foot

*--*

Total element score 63.32

Program component score 63.49

Total score for long program 126.81