Sasha Cohen

Alexandra Pauline "Sasha" Cohen (born October 26, 1984) is a U.S. figure skater. She is the 2006 Olympic silver medalist, the 2003 Grand Prix Final Champion, and the 2006 U.S. Champion.
Cohen was born in Westwood, California, a neighborhood in Los Angeles. Her nickname "Sasha" is a Russian nickname for "Alexandra". Her mother, Galina (née Feldman), is a Jewish immigrant from Ukraine and a former ballet dancer; her father, Roger Cohen, is a business consultant who is an attorney with Dorsey & Whitney LLP. Sasha graduated from Futures High School in Mission Viejo, California in 2002. Her sister, Natalia ("Natasha"), began college at Barnard College in August 2006.

In 2005, she published her autobiography, Fire on Ice. The autobiography was republished in 2006 adding a new chapter on the 2006 season.

Cohen understands Russian.

Early career

A gymnast from an early age, Cohen switched to figure skating when she was seven years old, but it wasn't until she was eleven that she began to take the sport seriously.

Cohen rose to prominence in the skating community during the 2000 United States Figure Skating Championships. Just up from juniors, Cohen dropped from first place after the short program to second after the free skating and qualified for the world team. Too young for the World Figure Skating Championships, a loophole at the time would have allowed her to compete in senior worlds if she medaled at the World Junior Figure Skating Championships. Cohen did not medal at world juniors and so did not go to senior worlds.

Senior development and success

Cohen did not compete at the 2001 Nationals due to a stress fracture in her back,^{[citation needed]} but took back her silver medal at the 2002 U.S. championships, earning her a trip to the Olympics. Cohen competed at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City,Utah, finishing 4th. She also finished 4th at the 2002 World Figure Skating Championships, held in Nagano.

Cohen switched coaches from John Nicks to Tatiana Tarasova in the 2002–03 season. She began winning her first ISU Grand Prix event in the2002 Skate America and repeating as gold medalist in the 2002 Trophée Lalique. She finished second in the 2002 Cup of Russia. These three placements earned her a spot to the 2002–2003 Grand Prix Final, where she became the champion. At the 2003 U.S. championships she won the bronze medal, and at the 2003 World Championships, held in Washington, D.C., Cohen placed 4th, repeating her placement in the previous season.

Her best season was 2003–04, when she took gold at the 2003 Skate America, at the 2003 Skate Canada and at the 2003 Trophée Lalique and won silver at the 2003–2004 Grand Prix Final. She changed her coach in the middle of the season, moving from Tatiana Tarasova to Robin Wagner, and placed second at both the 2004 U.S. championships and the 2004 World Championships, getting a medal at Worlds for the first time in her career.

Cohen decided to go back to her first coach John Nicks in the 2004–05 season. She withdrew from the 2005 ISU Grand Prix events due to a recurring back injury. She placed 2nd at the2005 U.S. championships in Portland and the 2005 World Figure Skating Championships in Moscow, Russia.

2006 Olympic Season

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 took 2nd place at Trophée Eric Bompard, where she fell on a triple salchow during her free skate. In 2006, Cohen overcame the flu to capture her first U.S. 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 was in 1st after the short program, leading Russia's Irina Slutskaya by a mere .03 points. In the final free skate, Cohen fell on her first jump, atriple lutz, and had her hands down on her second jump, the triple flip. She completed the rest of her elements, including five triples. Cohen finished with an Olympic silver medal, her first Olympic medal. The Olympic gold medalist, Shizuka Arakawa of Japan, won by 7.98 points over Cohen.

A month later at the 2006 World Figure Skating Championships in Calgary, Canada, Cohen was in 1st place after the short program. Completing only one jump combination and falling on the triple triple salchow, she placed fourth in the free skate and won the bronze medal, finishing almost ten points behind her teammate, gold medalist Kimmie Meissner. Cohen displayed strong artistry in her free skate 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.

Post 2006 Olympics

Cohen performs an I-spin at the 2009 Stars on Ice.

During April 2006, Cohen started the Champions on Ice tour, participated in the second annual "Skating with the Stars, Under the Stars" gala inCentral Park and performed in the Marshalls U.S. Figure Skating International Showcase. On April 15, 2006, Cohen announced that she intended 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."

In December 2006, Cohen announced that she needed "a little downtime from competing" and that she would not defend her US Figure Skating Championship title in 2007. She again stressed that her "major goals" were the 2009 World Figure Skating Championships and the 2010 Olympics; "I know I want to be in Vancouver for the 2010 Olympics."^[4]

Cohen did not compete in the 2007, 2008, or 2009 seasons, although she did not give up her Olympic eligibility. She performed in exhibitions, including the Rockefeller Christmas Tree lighting and USFSA-approved events. She was a headliner in the 2007–08 and 2008–09 Stars on Ice tour.

Return to Competition

Cohen announced on May 6, 2009 that she planned to make a comeback for the 2010 Winter Olympics.^[5] She received invitations to compete in the 2009 Trophée Eric Bompard and in the 2009 Skate America in the 2009–2010 Grand Prix Series. Cohen was forced to withdraw from both of her planned Grand Prix events due to an injury to her calf.

On January 21, 2010 she finally took to the competitive ice for the first time in four years at the 2010 AT&T U.S. Figure Skating Championships inSpokane, Washington. She debuted her program to España Cañí, and skated a strong performance landing a triple lutz-double toe, a triple flip, adouble axel, along with her signature spiral sequence and spins earning 69.63 points putting her in second place, just 0.43 from first place finisher Mirai Nagasu. However, her free skate, set to Moonlight Sonata, was filled with errors; she fell on a triple flip and had two-footed landings on a number of other jumps. Cohen finished fourth in the championships, behind Rachael Flatt, Mirai Nagasu and Ashley Wagner, and was not selected for the Olympic team, however was appointed as second alternate to the 2010 U.S. Olympic team and the 2010 World Championship team.

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'sSwan 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 Winter Olympics. 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.

With her announcement of a comeback on May 6, 2009, she also announced that she would train with Rafael Arutunian, instead of her former coach John Nicks. On November 2009, she returned to train with John Nicks.

Skating trademarks

Cohen performs an I-spin at the 2003 Skate Canada.

Cohen is known for being a talented skater, though her critics say she has never skated two clean programs in a row. Cohen is the first skater to have received +3s for spirals in the new judging system for 'Grade of Execution'.She is also known for difficult and creative positions in her spins, such as the "I" spin position which she popularized, and is also sometimes informally referred to as the "Sasha spin."