Sasha Cohen

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This article is about the figure skater. For the British comedian, see Sacha Baron Cohen.

Olympic medal record
Figure skating
Silver	2006 Turin	Ladies' singles

Sasha Cohen

Sasha Cohen at the 2004 World Figure Skating Championships in Dortmund, Germany, March 2004.
Personal Info
Country:	United States
Residence:	Corona Del Mar, Orange County
Height:	157 cm (5' 2")
Coach:	John Nicks
Skating Club:	Orange County FSC
ISU Personal Best Scores
Short + Free Total:	197.60	2003 Sk Can
Short Program:	71.12	2003 Sk Can
Free Skate:	130.89	2003 Sk Amer

Most Recent Results:
Event	Points	Finish	Year
Olympic Winter Games	183.36	2nd	2006
World Championships	208.88	3rd	2006
National Championships	199.18	1st	2006
Grand Prix Final	177.48	2nd	2003–04

Alexandra Pauline "Sasha" Cohen (born October 26, 1984) is an American figure skater. She is the reigning U.S. National Champion and silver medalist at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy.

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Career summary 1.2 Coaching changes 1.3 Skating trademarks 1.4 Television and film 1.5 Additional notes 2 Routines and results 2.1 Records and achievements 2.2 Competitive highlights 2.3 Programs 3 References 3.1 Biography 3.2 Scoring info 4 External links 4.1 Official sites

[edit] Biography

Cohen was born in Westwood, California, a neighborhood in Los Angeles. Her mother, Galina Feldman, is a Jewish immigrant from Ukraine and a former ballet dancer; her father, Roger Cohen, is a Jewish American business consultant who used to practice law. Her sister, Natalia ("Natasha"), began college at Barnard in the fall of 2006. Sasha is the Russian nickname for Alexandra. A gymnast from an early age, Cohen switched to figure skating when she was seven years old.

[edit] Career summary

Cohen competed at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah, finishing 4th. Her best season was 2003–2004, when she took gold at three Grand Prix events and silver at both the U.S. National Championships and the World Championships. Cohen placed 2nd at the 2005 U.S. National Championships in Portland, and the World Championships in Moscow, Russia. Unfortunatley, she had to withdraw from the 2005 Grand Prix events due to a recurring back injury.

Cohen started her Olympic season by placing 1st at the Campbell's International Figure Skating Challenge. Soon after she withdrew from Skate America due to a hip injury. She came back strong with a 2nd place finish at Trophée Eric Bompard.

In 2006, Cohen overcame a severe flu to capture her first U.S. National Championship. With this victory Cohen automatically secured her place on the U.S. Olympic team for the 2006 Winter Olympics, a spot made official on January 14 of that year by the United States Figure Skating Association.

At the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Cohen stood in 1st after the short program, leading Russia's Irina Slutskaya by a mere .03 points. In the final free skate, Cohen started off with a fall on her first jump and had her hands down on her second jump, the triple-flip. But after this difficult start, she completed the rest of her elements, including five triples. Cohen finished with a Olympic silver medal, her first Olympic medal. The Olympic gold medallist, Shizuka Arakawa of Japan, won by 7.98 points over Cohen.

A month later at the 2006 World Championships in Calgary, Canada, Cohen once more stood in 1st place going into the free skate, but problems in jumping (only one successful jump combination and a fall on the triple-salchow) dropped her down to 4th place for the free skate portion. She won the bronze medal but finished almost ten points behind her teammate, gold medalist Kimmie Meissner. Despite problems in her free skate, Cohen displayed strong artistry and picked up level fours on all her spins and her spiral sequence. Her program component score of 61.35 was the highest of the night.

During April 2006, Cohen started the Champions on Ice tour, participated in the second annual "Skating with the Stars, Under the Stars" gala in Central Park and performed in the Marshalls U.S. Figure Skating International Showcase. On April 15, 2006, Cohen announced that she intends to compete into the 2010 season and the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. She said via her official website, "I will decide after the COI Tour how much skating and what events I will do next season."

[edit] Coaching changes

Cohen was coached by John Nicks until the summer of 2002, when she relocated to Simsbury, Connecticut, to train with Russian coach Tatiana Tarasova, who choreographed Cohen's Swan Lake program and upgraded her footwork. Under Tarasova's coaching, Cohen landed her first triple-triple combination in competition, a triple lutz-triple toe. Also, Cohen completed her first clean free skate in the qualifying round at the 2003 World Championships. She changed coaches again in January 2004 to Robin Wagner (who coached Sarah Hughes to Olympic gold), in Hackensack, New Jersey. In December 2004, Cohen returned to California to work with her original coach, John Nicks, who trained her to compete in the 2006 Olympic Winter Games. Nicks, who is very knowledgeable on the Code of Points system, helped Cohen increase the difficulty of her spins and spirals, as well as her jumps, to maximize her performances under the new system.

[edit] Skating trademarks

Cohen is known for being one of the most talented skaters of her time,^{[citation needed]} though her critics say she has never skated two clean programs in a row.^{[1] [2]} Her childhood training as a gymnast allows her to bring an impressive degree of flexibility to the sport. Her spiral sequences are credited to be the best in skating world due to incredibly flexed positions and control. She is the only skater to have received +3s for spirals in the new judging system for 'Grade of Execution' under the new system. She is also known for difficult and creative positions in her spins. Cohen worked on a quadruple salchow, which she had landed 10-20% of the time in practice in her younger years, including the 2001 Skate America warmups. However, Cohen abandoned the pursuit of the quad in hopes of becoming a more well-rounded skater. The following season she went on to add a triple lutz/triple toe combination, but did not land it cleanly until the world championships. During her free skates she has performed the difficult triple toe/half loop/triple salchow jump sequence. More recently she has added the Biellmann spin to her repertoire.

[edit] Television and film

Cohen has appeared on television and in film. During a recent guest appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, in a backstage interview, she said: "I love the glamour of red carpet events"; and she "hope[s] that [her] next appearance on the show would be [as] an actress instead" of a figure skater.^{[citation needed]} Cohen has done commercials for Citizen Watch, Simply Saline, and "Got Milk?"; and has appeared in Project Runway Episode 7 wherein designers were challenged to design a skating dress for her. The winning dress, (Zulema's), did not fit because the designers were not accustomed to making dresses for figure skaters; consequently, the dress had to be resized. Cohen has made a brief appearance guest starring, as herself, on the May 5, 2006, episode of the NBC drama, Las Vegas. ^[3] In the scheduled 2007 release of the Don Johnson movie Moondance Alexander Cohen will be playing the part of "Fiona Hughes," which is now in post-production.^[4] At the 2006 Academy Awards, Cohen served as a guest correspondent for Inside Edition. This experience led to an encounter with Ben Stiller about having a part in a future comedy about figure skating; something Cohen said she would enjoy participating in. The film, where Cohen will appear as herself, is titled Blades of Glory and stars Will Ferrell. Ben Stiller is the producer. The film is scheduled to be released on March 30, 2007.

[edit] Additional notes

• In 2005, Cohen released her autobiography Fire on Ice. The revised edition, which features her 2006 Olympic experiences, was released on March 28, 2006.
• Cohen is the first U.S. woman since Tara Lipinski (1998) to win gold at the ISU Grand Prix Final (2003).
• Cohen understands and is able to speak basic Russian.
• Cohen wears a Kabbalah red string bracelet. She said, "I'm not deeply into Kabbalah, but I appreciate the principles of it, to ward off evil and not think negative thoughts about people."^[5]
• Cohen graduated from Futures High School in Mission Viejo, California in 2002

[edit] Routines and results

[edit] Records and achievements

• Olympic silver medalist (2006)
• World Championships silver medalist (2004, 2005)
• United States National Champion (2006)
• ISU Grand Prix Final Champion (2003)
• Highest scores posted under Code of Points - Ladies (Short and Free Skate)
• World Championships bronze medallist (2006)
• Marshalls Worlds Figure Skating Challenge gold medalist (2004)

[edit] Competitive highlights

Major events (senior)
	ISU Grand Prix Finals			National Championships			Four Continents Championships			World Championships				Olympic Games
Seasons	SP	FS	Finish	SP	FS	Finish	SP	FS	Finish	QF	SP	FS	Finish	SP	FS	Finish
2005–06	DNQ			1	1	1st	-			3	1	4	3rd	1	2	2nd
				65.15	134.03	199.18				27.59	66.62	114.67	208.88	66.73	116.63	183.36
2004–05	DNQ			2	2	2nd	-			1	2	2	2nd	-
										28.41	61.37	124.61	214.39
2003–04	2	2	2nd	1	2	2nd	-			1	1	3	2nd	-
	60.80	116.68	177.48
2002-03	1	2/1	1st	2	3	3rd	-			3	5T	3	4th	-
2001-02	DNQ			2	2	2nd	-			2	5	4	4th	3	4	4th
2000-01	DNQ			W/D			-			-				-
1999-00	DNQ			1	2	2nd	-			-				-

Legend

DNQ 

Did not qualify

W/D 

Withdrew

[edit] Programs

2006-2007

Short: Dark Eyes — choreographed by Nikolai Morozov, David Wilson.

Long: TBA

Exhibition: TBA

2005-2006

Short: Dark Eyes — choreographed by Nikolai Morozov, David Wilson.

Long: Romeo and Juliet — choreographed by Nikolai Morozov, David Wilson.

Exhibition: Don't Rain on My Parade by Barbra Streisand; God Bless America by Celine Dion

2004-2005

Short: Dark Eyes — choreographed by Nikolai Morozov.

Long: Pas de deux from The Nutcracker — choreographed by Igor Shpilband, Marina Zueva.

Exhibition: Don't Rain on My Parade by Barbra Streisand

2003-2004

Short: Malagueña by Ernesto Lecuona — choreographed by Nikolai Morozov, Tatiana Tarasova.

Long: Swan Lake — choreographed by Tatiana Tarasova, Robin Wagner.

Exhibition: Romeo and Juliet — choreographed by Tatiana Tarasova

2002-2003

Short: Malagueña by Ernesto Lecuona — choreographed by Nikolai Morozov.

Long: Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 — choreographed by Nikolai Morozov.

Exhibition: Romeo and Juliet — choreographed by Tatiana Tarasova; One Day I'll Fly Away from Moulin Rouge! by Nicole Kidman

2001-2002

Short: My Sweet and Tender Beast by Doga — choreographed by John Nicks and Cohen.

Long: Carmen by Georges Bizet — choreographed by John Nicks and Cohen.

Exhibition: Hernando's Hideway by Ella Fitzgerald — choreographed by John Nicks and Cohen; Aria by Heitor Villa-Lobos — choreographed by John Nicks, Ekaterina Gordeeva and Cohen.

2000-2001

Short: My Sweet and Tender Beast by Doga — choreographed by John Nicks and Cohen.

Long: Dark Eyes orchestrated by London Festival Orchestra — choreographed by John Nicks and Cohen.

Exhibition: Anytime, Anywhere by Sarah Brightman — choreographed by John Nicks, Ekaterina Gordeeva and Cohen; To Love You More by Celine Dion — choreographed by John Nicks and Cohen.

1999-2000

Short: Baroque Selections by Vivaldi and Albinoni — choreographed by John Nicks and Cohen.

Long: Violin Concerto by Mendelssohn — choreographed by John Nicks and Cohen.

Exhibition: Madame Butterfly by Puccini — choreographed by John Nicks and Cohen.

[edit] References

1. ^ Arica Dixon. "Is Sasha Cohen Cursed?", Rampway Online (student-run online magazine at Georgia State University), 2006-03-29. Retrieved on 2006-09-27.
2. ^ John Henderson. "Proof of greatness: Perennial second-place finisher Sasha Cohen tries to silence her critics with a national title", DenverPost. Retrieved on 2006-09-27.
3. ^ Sasha Does Hollywood!. SashaCohen.com. Retrieved on April 17, 2006.
4. ^ Moondance Alexander at the Internet Movie Database
5. ^ Figure Skating - Sasha Cohen's Mailbag. NBCOlympics.com. Retrieved on April 17, 2006.

[edit] Biography

• Cohen, Sasha. (2006). Fire on Ice (Revised Edition): Autobiography of a Champion Figure Skater. Collins. ISBN 0-06-115385-0

[edit] Scoring info

• Winter Olympics scores
  • 2006 Winter Olympics, 2002 Winter Olympics
• World Championships scores
  • 2006 Worlds, 2005 Worlds, 2004 Worlds, 2003 Worlds, 2002 Worlds
• ISU Grand Prix Finals
  • 2003-04 GPF, 2002-03 GPF
• United States Nationals scores
  • 2006 Nationals, 2005 Nationals, 2004 Nationals, 2003 Nationals, 2002 Nationals, 2000 Nationals

[edit] External links

[edit] Official sites

• SashaCohen.com - Official Site
• OCFSC - Orange County Figure Skating Club
• Sasha Cohen at the United States Figure Skating Association
• Sasha Cohen at the International Skating Union biography page
• NBCOlympics.com - Profile
• U.S. Olympic Team bio - Q&As, photos, wallpapers