The leaders
The top seven women before tonight’s long program:
* As a child at Costa Mesa Ice Chalet she was nicknamed “China Doll” because of her tiny build and porcelain complexion, but she’s trying not to allow cracks in her composure. First blazed to prominence at the 2000 national championships, where she finished second to Michelle Kwan. She missed the 2001 competition because of a back injury, and she has done stretching exercises to avoid a recurrence. She used to practice a quadruple salchow, but that’s no longer in her repertoire. She’s 5 feet 2, 95 pounds and a darling of fashion magazines -- and appeared in an episode of “Runway” in which designers competed to create a skating dress for her. She will skate second in the final group of six. Her music is “Romeo and Juliet.”
*--* SASHA COHEN 21, Corona del Mar
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*--* IRINA SLUTSKAYA 27, Moscow
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* Competing in probably her final Olympics, she finished fifth at Nagano and an unhappy second at Salt Lake City. She’s known for getting remarkable height on her jumps and wearing bodysuits in a sport replete with outlandish dresses. If she wins, she’d be the first Russian woman to win a singles gold medal and she’d give Russia an unprecedented sweep of the four figure skating disciplines here. She was second after the short program at Salt Lake City and retained that position, because a protest of the results by the Soviet federation was denied. A Russian jeweler presented her a duplicate gold medal when she returned home. She will skate last, to a flamenco medley.
*--* SKIZUKA ARAKAWA 24, Miyagi, Japan
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* A superb technician, she won the 2004 world championship at Dortmund, Germany, with a program that included an unprecedented triple lutz-triple toe loop-double loop as well as a triple-triple combination. However, she lost her motivation and dropped to ninth in 2005. Switched coaches in December from Tatiana Tarasova to Nikolai Morozov. She may try a triple-triple-triple combination today. She will skate to Turandot by Puccini, sure to endear her to the Italian crowd. She will skate third in the final group.
*--* FUMIE SUGURI 25, Kanagawa, Japan
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* Daughter of an airline pilot who was based in Alaska, Suguri at her best is an expressive skater with a flowing style. Some of that undoubtedly stems from her work with choreographer Lori Nichol, who formerly worked with Michelle Kwan. Suguri was fifth at Salt Lake City and has twice finished third at the world championships. She was hampered this season by a groin injury but has recovered. One of her coaches is Nobuo Sato, father of 1994 world champion Yuka Sato. She will skate to Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor and will perform fourth in the final group.
*--* KIMMIE MEISSNER 16, Bel Air, Md.
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* She walked into the Palavela on Tuesday as a hopeful and walked out a star. She’s levelheaded and admittedly enthralled by the Olympic experience. One of only two skaters to land a triple-triple combination jump in her short program, she plans to incorporate two into her “Queen of Sheba” long program today, a triple flip-triple toe loop and triple lutz-triple toe loop. But she said she won’t do a triple axel, the jump she pulled out at last year’s national championships and became the first U.S. woman to perform since Tonya Harding in 1991. She’ll skate fifth in the final group.
*--* ELENE GEDEVANISHVILI 16, Tbilisi, Georgia
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* The new kid in town. One of only two skaters to land a triple-triple combination in the short program -- Meissner was the other -- she was a revelation. She finished fifth at the European championships last month, days after she turned 16, and was fifth at last year’s world junior championships. She’s coached by Elena Vodorezova Buianova, a former singles skater who finished third at the 1983 world championships and eighth at the 1984 Sarajevo Games. She will skate first in the final group and will perform to “Armenian Rhapsody” by Gevorkian.
*--* EMILY HUGHES 17, Great Neck, N.Y.
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* She looks and skates a lot like her older sister, 2002 Olympic champion Sarah Hughes, but Sarah was in fourth place after the short program at Salt Lake City and Emily is seventh, 9.65 points behind Cohen. She was named to the team after the Games began as a replacement for Michelle Kwan, who withdrew because of a groin injury, but arriving late hasn’t hurt her performance or practices. She will skate third in the third group, 15th in the field of 24, and will perform to “Seasons” by Alexander Glazunov.
-- Helene Elliott
