Cohen Puts Herself Back in Prime Spot

CALGARY, Canada â€”  It will be different this time, Sasha Cohen insisted Friday. She won’t let a major figure skating title slip from her grasp again and leave the world championships with a silver medal or the gnawing regrets she took home from the Turin Olympics.

Cohen, of Corona del Mar, purged the memory of her shaky qualifying-round effort on Wednesday by performing a spirited short program to the Russian folk song “Dark Eyes� at the Pengrowth Saddledome. She took the lead with today’s long program remaining, “which, of course, she’s done before,� her coach, John Nicks, said with a laugh.

But this time, she vowed to fight. She summoned a dose of that fire on Friday after she two-footed the landing of her combination jump but went on to skate swiftly and surely and get high marks for her spins and footwork. Her total of 94.21 points for the first two rounds put her 3.62 points ahead of Fumie Suguri of Japan and 5.58 ahead of Kimmie Meissner of Bel Air, Md. Emily Hughes of Great Neck, N.Y., fell on her combination jump and is a distant eighth.

“I think Wednesday shook me up a little bit, and I took it a little too easy,� Cohen said, “and it reminded me to really to believe and conquer and stay in the present and give it 100% because I can do all these jumps 99.9% of the time and it’s just making it happen when I’m out there.�

Her lead is “a nice little piece of room, but I’m taking Wednesday as a lesson,� she said. “The past 36 hours were not very fun for me, because you feel however you finish.�

It was a familiar sensation. Cohen was first after the short program at Turin but within the first 40 seconds of her long program fell on her first jump and touched her hands to the ice on her second jump, creating an opening for Japan’s Shizuka Arakawa to move up from third and win. Cohen also was first at the 2004 world championships but slipped behind Arakawa, and was third after the short program at the 2002 Olympics but stumbled to fourth.

To help her fend off those old demons today, Nicks said he will remind her to concentrate on quickness and determination, the same advice he offered on Friday. She took it to heart and earned 66.62 points for her short program, the day’s top total.

“She has to skate to her potential,� he said. “If she skates to her potential, she will win. Everybody knows that.�

Suguri, fourth at Turin, skated smoothly Friday except for a step-out on her triple flip. “I am very disappointed with my jump mistake, so I will set my mind for [today] and do my best,� she said.

Meissner performed a wobbly spiral and did a triple-double combination jump instead of a triple-triple but was happy with her standing at her first senior-level world championships.

“Every competition, I’m building up for the next Olympics, worlds or nationals,� said Meissner, who was sixth in Turin. “ ... I was glad to finish on a high note.�

Cohen can finish on a higher note than she has reached before. She said she’s prepared -- but she has done that before too.

“You just have to believe, no matter what, when the odds are against you. It’s the only way it’s possible,� she said. “It’s that kind of competitive spirit to make something happen, even when times are tough.�