Article on Sasha Cohen

[kemy]

With the help of a physical trainer, injuries from office training should not be much of a factor...unless some kind of freak accident happens or the personal trainer isn't very good.

The benefits of training include a lesser chance of an on or off the ice due to better control of the much trained muscles.

Pixie, I think Lavender's "of course" meant that she knows that you don't like Michelle...You've made that quite obvious. You DID bring her into a thread that has nothing to do with her...AND the comment about her added nothing to the ongoing discussion on hand.

 

[Kwanisqueen81]

season's openings

WOW 6 pages for this theard!! Any sasha, michelle or sasha/michelle theard always produces this kind of multipaged theards...I love it.

Back on topic:
This article is total hype!! I like sasha but pure hype machines like this areticle don't help. Leading up to 2006 sasha better watch her back cuz AP Mac is gonna be HUGE!! She gets no hype and has already outskated sasha 3 times last season (cambells, nats lp, ABC inernational challenge) If sasha skates badly again at nats the judges will NOT hold her up at all. AP, Angela, Bebe, and yebin are waiting. It seems to me the media is hypeing the wrong skater(didn't tiffany chin win '88 gold, didn't Oskana reinstate to win in '98)It would be a reality check to all those who buy into this rediculous, over-the-top hype (ie The "best ever" comments) if AP, Bebe, or angela finish ahead of her at nats. For god's skate somepeople Katerina Witt the "BEST EVER"(and she has 2 OGMs) so why the hell would any credtible figure skating historian concider sasha the best ever even when she has never metaled at worlds??? :sheesh: It's shut up and win already time for sasha.

Seriously though if this journalist (if you can call what her wrote 'journalism') thinks Sasha Cohen is the BEST EVER....where does that leave poor, old quadless Michelle, oh the humility and irony!!! At least I can say I had a good laugh.


p.s
I want sasha to realize her potential this season. I am anti-hype NOT anti-cohen. Sarah Hughes was NEVER hyped-up and she skated away the olympic gold metal. Sasha is ALWAYS hyped and...falls, go figure.

 

[skatepixie]

Pixie, I think Lavender's "of course" meant that she knows that you don't like Michelle...You've made that quite obvious. You DID bring her into a thread that has nothing to do with her...AND the comment about her added nothing to the ongoing discussion on hand.

Actually, I wasnt the one who brought her up. Someone else stated that she hadent used a trainer until this year, and I said that I thought that she had gone DOWN not up with the trainer....

 

[swannanoa54]

Consider this

Actually, I wasnt the one who brought her up. Someone else stated that she hadent used a trainer until this year, and I said that I thought that she had gone DOWN not up with the trainer....

Having nothing to do with the thread at hand, I am just going to respond to this statement.

Pixie, MK used a trainer LAST season. She has done that before. But if you mean she had gone "down" not "up" because she JUST started using a trainer, I think you weren't watching her win. If winning Worlds this past season is going "down", then I hope she has many more "down" seasons.

And I think an off ice trainer has been necessary for Sasha since she came back from her back injury. She just isn't as strong. Hopefully this will have helped her as well.

 

[tharrtell]

Rgirl, interesting thoughts about the tradition of figure skating limiting the sport, in some sense. There is a big industry out there dedicated to making even the smallest advances in sports. To use some of those advancements does seem like a no brainer to me. Just because something wasn't done in the past doesn't make it an invalid method of training - athletes/coaches take the best information at any given point in time and apply it. Will it change? Yes. Will advances that are later found to be inaccurate be used? Yes. Does that mean a sport shouldn't try to move forward? In my opinion, no. I am aware that there have been many advances in figure skating, but they have been in the form of adding rotations - building on what is already there.

It is hard for me to understand this mentality because of my point of reference which is that of triathletes who are notoriously hypersensative to the science of training and advances in technology. People will spend significant $ (when I say significant, I mean upwards of a grand) on a set of wheels that will make their bike a bit lighter in an effort to go faster. They will make weekly therapist appointments - massage, ART chiropractic, etc. in an effort to keep their bodies healthy and in top form. They will pay for cutting edge coaching. All of this to go a bit faster in a race ... and these people aren't even professionals! Not to say I do this stuff, but I'm surrounded by it, so that's where I'm coming from.

I think some of this is overkill, but I also think there is some common sense in it. A strong body can only help. Sport specific weight training, aerobic work, a strong core - I think that will help everyone.

 

[tiggeryang]

Article redux (Hartford Courant)

<de-lurking>

http://www.ctnow.com/sports/hc-sasha1003.artoct03,1,7121488.story

For your reading pleasure . . . please note that you may need to login.

<back to lurking>

 

[windspirit]

Welcome Tiggeryang!

Could you (or someone else) please summarize the article? I wanted to register, but as it turns out they want everything: our email, name, address, and phone number. I think I'll pass.

 

[Mathman]

"SIMSBURY -- Her jumps still defy gravity, her spirals rival Michelle Kwan's, and her spins are the best in the world.

But beneath the black practice tights, the calf and thigh muscles that support her thin frame are stronger than they were."

This story is mostly about Sasha's off-ice training with physical trainer Boris Drapken.

"My day started at 8:30 in the morning and didn't end until 7 at night," Cohen said. "He had me do sprinting drills. I ran laps for 40 minutes. I lifted weights twice a week. I did a lot of off-ice jumping. I did all this for three hours after three hours of skating every day.

"My body was not used to it, and I was sore all summer. I'm definitely stronger than I was. The first time I did a run-through of my long program, I wasn't panting at the end. I wasn't breathless when I finished."

I think this full statement makes it clear what the "first time breathless" quote in the other article was about. Because of all the training she did in the summer (unlike other summers when she hadn't trained as rigorously), once she started actually doing full run-throughs of her program in the fall, she could do it without feeling out of breath even the first time.

The article goes on to say some things about the Campbell's event -- who will be there, etc. About quads:

"The four-revolution quad was once on Cohen's wish list this year - and in the back of her mind, it still is - but it won't be in her program for a while.

"'Last year, you needed a triple-triple combination,' Cohen said. 'This year, with the new judging system, you don't - unless it's perfect. You're better off doing a triple-double if it's clean.'

"'The new system will reward solid, clean, good-quality programs. The people winning will not just be jumpers. What they do, they will do well.'

"Cohen's new long program, skated to the music from Swan Lake, has two early combination jumps, followed by two more triple jumps and then three triples toward the end, sandwiched around her breathtaking spirals."

Lots more. Very nice article. (I am trying not to break any copyright laws here, LOL.)

BTW, if you want to "register" without giving out any personal information, just make up a phony name, email address, etc. When you finish it will take you to the article no matter what you put down.

Mathman

 

[windspirit]

Thank you kindly, Mathman.

This story is mostly about Sasha's off-ice training with physical trainer Boris Drapken.

What happened to Vladimir Petrenko?

BTW, if you want to "register" without giving out any personal information, just make up a phony name, email address, etc. When you finish it will take you to the article no matter what you put down.

I think you need a valid email address, because you have to confirm the registration that way (and with that I don't have a problem). As for the rest: Mathman, you little devil!
http://www.members.lycos.co.uk/windspirit6/sm/angdev.gif

 

[skatepixie]

Re: Consider this

Having nothing to do with the thread at hand, I am just going to respond to this statement.

Pixie, MK used a trainer LAST season. She has done that before. But if you mean she had gone "down" not "up" because she JUST started using a trainer, I think you weren't watching her win. If winning Worlds this past season is going "down", then I hope she has many more "down" seasons.

And I think an off ice trainer has been necessary for Sasha since she came back from her back injury. She just isn't as strong. Hopefully this will have helped her as well.

She perfromed at a lower level. Less jumps (No 3/3 attempts). Less style.

Yeah...Sasha was so weak that she was landing quads...

 

[Mathman]

Does anyone else think that the girl on Joan of Arcadia looks like Sasha?

MM

 

[tharrtell]

Thanks for the details on the article, MM. Sasha has been working hard. I'm sure it will pay off. It's very gratifying to know that you've worked your tush off and see results. Best of luck to her this season.

 

[Rgirl]

I have questions about the hinged boot (or "clap-boot"), too, Pixie. I don't have a picture, but here is a desciption of it, as used by speed skaters (in the box "Technical issues" on the left)....The blade is attached to the boot only at the toe, and when you lift up your heel in stroking, the back of the blade separates from the boot, then it snaps back by a spring. So the idea in spped skating is that the whole length of the blade makes contact with the ice longer, so you can get more thrust with each stroke.....But even if this exact model is not the answer, it seems like people should be doing research into making equipment that distributes stress better.
Mathman

I should have stated that the hinged boot for figure skating is NOT the same as the clap-boot for speed skaters. My boo-boo. Sorry. The hinge on the figure skating hinged boot has nothing to do with the blade. The hinge is at the ankle so that it allows for greater ankle flexion and extension. The way skate boots are now and have been for the last 60 years, the amount of ankle flexion/extension is very limited due to the above-the-ankle part of the boot needing to be "stiff" so it can support the ankle from going sideways, that is, "rolling in" or "rolling out." You know when people rent a wimpy pair of boots at a skating rink and you see their ankles rolling in and out. Actually it's not the ankle but the tarsus joint that rolls sideways, but for simplicity's sake, let's say ankle/tarsus.

Anyway, what the hinge does is stabilize the ankle/tarsus joint but running one part shaped like a metal nail file up the inside and outside of the ankle part of each boot as well as along the inside and outside of the boot parallel to the blade. The actual hinge comes just about where those bones stick out from the inside and outside of your ankle (medial malleolus of the tibia and lateral malleolus of the fibula, respectively). With the hinge as the corner, the two pieces of metal form an L shape, more or less, again on the inside and outside of each boot at the ankle. By bracing the ankle/tarsus from rolling in and out, the hinge allows the boot to have greater freedom in flexion and extensions. As the boots are now, the bracing effect goes all the way around the ankle/tarsus via the tight lacing up of hte boots and strong leather. The boots would not need the tight lacing up the ankle with the hinge. By allowing for greater ankle flexion with the hinged figure skating boot, a skater can use more ankle flexion during take-off and landing on jumps. On landing, greater ankle flexion allows for the forces to be more equally distributed to the ankle, knee, hip, and lower back. With limited ankle flexion, as skaters have now with boots, a lot of the forct is focused on the hip

Of course any new piece of equipment requires adjustment and I would never support forcing skaters to wear them. But although researchers at the American College of Sports Medicine but a lot of money, time, and efoort into developing the figure skating hinged boot, it's almost impossible to find out anything about it. If you look up "hinged skate boot" or even "hinged figure skating boot" on any search engine, the closest thing you get is the "clap" boot for speed skating, which is an entirely different thing. You can't even find anything about it on Medline, which is as close as you can get to the source without contacting the ACSM and finding the researchers who worked on the hinged boot. I only know about it because I saw a feature on NBC news during the '02 Olympics about the hinged figure skating boot. I thought surely I'd be able to find info about it on the Internet, otherwise I would have written down EVERYTHING about what I'd seen on that NBC news feature, especially the names of the researchers and developers.

However, using just one Medline example from the journal "Clinical Biomechanics 1997, Apr;12(3):S11, in the article " Impact forces upon landing single, double, and triple revolution jumps in figure skaters" bymLockwood K, Gervais P., faculty of Physical Education and Recreation, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada.
"[The results suggest] that the increased time required for rotation [during a triple jump] places the skater closer to the ice at time of impact. A 'collision type' landing seems to be a result of higher revolution jumps. Decreasing the time to properly dissipate the force may also suggest that the impact propagated through the lower extremity musculo-skeletal system is of greater magnitude and intensity introducing greater potential for injury."

In plain English the results of this study demonstrate that in single and double jumps, skaters have more time to finish the rotations in the air and then are high enough above the ice when they are finished rotating that they can control the landing, thus dissipating the forces more evenly through the ankle, knee, hip, and lower back. But with a triple jump, the skater is still rotating very close to the time of contact with the ice, thus allowing for less control of the landing, hence the use of the term "collision type" landing, which does not allow skaters to dissipate the forces throughout the leg, hip, and back as they would in a single or double jump. Because of this difference between single and double jumps and triple jumps on the impact forces of landing and thus greater potential for injury, it would seem to me that some kind of technical adjustment to the skate boot, whether it be a hinge, more absorbant materials in the boot, or whatever shoud be developed to increase the safety and longevity of the skaters, IMO.
Rgirl

 

[Rgirl]

Off ice training has some value. However, i think the risk of injury and loss of time for on ice training can out weigh doing it to a huge extend.

What do you mean by hinged skate boot? Can I see a pic? Because if it distributes yr weight diffrently it might "throw off" us skaters who trained on a standard boot. It would also be hard for coaches to teach with something so diffrent.

I think off-ice training seems like it might put skaters at greater risk to a lot of people in skating, hence the relative lack of use of it. And of course there is always the risk of overtraining, but that can happen whether you use off-ice training or not. In fact, research about the benefits of both on and off-ice conditioning for figure skaters has been available since 1979.

This abstract is from an article in the "American Journal of Sports Medicine," 1979, Jan-Feb;7(1):43-7; "Conditioning program for competitive figure skating," by McMaster WC, Liddle S, Walsh J.
"To test the feasibility that traditional interval training methods could be adapted to the needs of competitive figure skaters, an interval skating program was conducted during a 3-month period for a group of skaters at diverse levels of proficiency. The program required only a small portion of the total ice time utilized by the skaters on a daily basis, i.e., 1/2 hr, three times a week. On alternate days, the skaters used the same amount of time in a strength training program. A flexibility-stretching facet was to be done by the skaters on a daily basis. Progress was evaluated by treadmill oxygen consumption determinations and ability to perform a 1/2-mile skate effort. Over the course of the 3-month period, the skaters in the program showed an average increase in oxygen consumption of 9% from 44.73 cc per kg per min to 55.51 cc per kg per min. This was accompanied by an average 10-sec reduction in the timed effort at the 1/2-mile skate. Subjectively, the skaters were less fatigued during their freestyle skating programs and were able to improve consistency at skilled maneuvers in the last minute of their performances. This initial effort to evaluate the efficacy of this type of a training program for competitive figure skating seems to have proven to be beneficial to the skaters. Currently, we are continuing our efforts to expand the program."
PMID: 420387 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Speaking for myself, and OT for the moment, I saw not only a great improvement in Michelle's skating last season and continuing thus far this season in her basic skating, but also as of last night (back on topic), a great improvement in Sasha Cohen's skating. One reason I think at least trying on and off-ice conditiong is important, with a skilled and experienced trainer in the field of course, is that a skaters can wrack their brains trying to figure out what they're doing wrong with even the best of coaches and often the problem can be at least partially solved by better conditioning. You can know the correct technique for a jump or some other element but if your body isn't strong enough to consistently maintain that technique or if you're too tired to use that technique in the last half of your LP, then what good is knowing the correct technique? Last season Cohen could barely do a 2Axel at the 2:40 mark. Last night she did a triple at 2:55 and another triple at 3:07 (wasn't paying attention to what kind of triples). And except for one slightly wonky landing, Sasha had no mistakes and looked stronger than she ever looked last season, IMO. Of course it remains to be seen if she make silly mistakes again as the season goes on, but at least IMO her basics are stronger and all seven judges agreed on both her technical and presentation scores--5.8 across the board for the former, 5.9 across the board for the latter. I think both Michelle and Sasha's skating show the benefits of good, experienced off-ice training. With Michelle for sure, IMO, with Sasha at least in this first competition.

As for your second question about the hinged figure skating boot, see my explanation about how it works. Mathman was describing the hinged design or clap boots for speed skating, which involves the blade; the one for figure skaters does not involve the blade. (Wasn't Mathman's fault, BTW; I wasn't clear that there were two kinds of hinged boots.) As I say above, of course anything new takes time to get used to and learn but if it can help prevent injuries and the loss of skaters' careers due to hip injury such as Naomi Nari Nam, then I think the time spent getting used to the new technology is worth it.
Rgirl

 

[Rgirl]

Rgirl, interesting thoughts about the tradition of figure skating limiting the sport, in some sense. There is a big industry out there dedicated to making even the smallest advances in sports. To use some of those advancements does seem like a no brainer to me. Just because something wasn't done in the past doesn't make it an invalid method of training - athletes/coaches take the best information at any given point in time and apply it. Will it change? Yes. Will advances that are later found to be inaccurate be used? Yes. Does that mean a sport shouldn't try to move forward? In my opinion, no. I am aware that there have been many advances in figure skating, but they have been in the form of adding rotations - building on what is already there.

It is hard for me to understand this mentality because of my point of reference which is that of triathletes who are notoriously hypersensative to the science of training and advances in technology. People will spend significant $ (when I say significant, I mean upwards of a grand) on a set of wheels that will make their bike a bit lighter in an effort to go faster. They will make weekly therapist appointments - massage, ART chiropractic, etc. in an effort to keep their bodies healthy and in top form. They will pay for cutting edge coaching. All of this to go a bit faster in a race ... and these people aren't even professionals! Not to say I do this stuff, but I'm surrounded by it, so that's where I'm coming from.

I think some of this is overkill, but I also think there is some common sense in it. A strong body can only help. Sport specific weight training, aerobic work, a strong core - I think that will help everyone.

Tharrtell, I hear ya. Perhaps some of the reason the attitudes in figure skating don't surprise me is that figure skating is much like dance, which was my most intense background for many, many years and while I can no longer do it, I still study and write about dance medicine. As a dancer, it was all tradition. We even looked down on people who tried to use scientific methods to research better training methods for dance. Hah! was the attitude. What do these people in their labs who were just never good enough to be dancers think they can teach us about this thing that is so subtle, so technique based, so artistic? A lot of it was hubris on our part, but also the dance scientists who first started teaching courses in kinesiology would often reinforce our prejudices because they'd come bombing into class saying to the instructor, "The way you're telling them to do that is ALL WRONG!" You can imagine the reception that got.

Also, I think figure skating and dance are linked because neither can be quantified by time, distance, weight lifted, or anything like that. With triathletes, you can measure increases in speed, even small ones, which gives the athlete the ability to say, "Yes! My intervals are 4/1000ths of a second faster! Yeah, man! What I'm doing is working!" In figure skating, what do you measure when so many factors go into making a great skater? Also, as I think I said before, coaches in skating are used to being "the great and powerful Oz." That's not a role many coaches want to give up.

Anyway, when I had to stop performing because of an injurying and got a master's in sports medicine, the more I studied and applied what I was learning, the more I thought, Boy, what idiots we are as dancers. We didn't even know the basics about training for the endurance to get through a particularly difficult piece of choreography. We'd just rehearse sections of it and not do a full runthrough until a couple of days before the premiere and gee, we'd wonder why we barely got through the piece alive. We'd get injured when we'd do a piece with extreme positions, like standing on the sides of our necks, without preparation, and when we got injured it was because you weren't using good technique. We'd pay big money for some injury-prevention system guru to come out and teach us "floor barre" and though it worked different muscles for a while, it didn't help anybody.

As a choreographer, when I applied certain training techniques to make sure the dancers were in peak condition to be able to execute the dance I'd made, such as double runthroughs, making them wear weight belts, things like that, boy, did those dancers hate me, lol. But once they'd gotten through the rough portion and had built up the necessary and proper endurance, they were thrilled at how easy it was to do what had been very difficult choreography. They said the very same thing Cohen said in her interview (and you guys thought I'd never get back on topic), "Wow, I can't believe that we're not out of breath! I don't think I've ever danced when I wasn't out of breath before!" This group of dancers won awards, the instructors were thrilled, yadda yadda, but did they want to continue doing any of the things I'd done? No. They'd been teaching dance this way for 200 years (in ballet) and 50 years in modern and that was just fine with them. Plain old resistance to change.

I think it's just a difference mindset: One group, like triathletes for example, will try anything and everything to improve. They know the difference between gold and silver can be less than 1/1000th of a second. Dancers will do a lot of things too--get Rolfed, go to chiropractors, take vitamins, take classes from those injury prevention quacks, learn what muscle did what, but nothing outside the "circle of tradition." You'd think that nothing woud succeed like success and in some ways in dance that has happened. Dancers today are leaner from FINALLY doing weight training when they finally realized that it wouldn't give them giant Goodyear Blimp muscles if they didn't do high resisitance, high rep. Dancers work out because everybody works out, but it's a start.

Anyway, even athletic research in figure skatingi is way behing the times. I did a Pubmed search for all the research articles they had on dance--everything--and came up with 1428 research artcles. I did the same thing for figure skating and got 67 research articles. In figure skating, a couple of articles go back as far as '79, then there are a few around '87-89, but by far the bulk of them are since about '97. Figure skaters are really isolated. Even dance is more "sociable" because dancers take classes in groups and perform in companies. For skaters, it's a one or two person deal, that's it.

Knowing how much my own mind changed once I got out of the insular world of dance, it just doesn't surprise me that figure skating is the way it is. It doesn't make sense, but since when have people had that as a priority?
Rgirl

PS to Mathman: Thanks for summarizing the article on Sasha's off-ice training. You piqued my interest enough for me to sell my soul and read the whole article. Oh, wait, I don't have a soul to sell. Well, I find something

PS in General: Hype-schmype. Being at the Garden last night and seeing all those empty seats reinforced the idea that figure skating needs to put butts in seats to make money off competitions. Okay, NYC has a lot of competition for one's entertainment dollar. But what gets people going to competitions is interest and interest comes with knowing the skaters. Or having one of them be involved in whacking another one on the knee, but I'd call that a bad PR move. The skaters don't call up the NY Times and say, "Hey, want to do an article on me?" Every skater who was top five in the world last year has some kind of PR person, believe me. BTW, Sarah didn't just quietly go to the Olympics and win. She was on the cover of TIME magazine. Sarah was TIME's preOlympic choice to win! Michelle was NEWSWEEK's choice. Nobody was hyping Sasha to win the Olympics. It was, after all, her first international competition. So I think all this hype about Sasha getting so much hype is just hype. When Naomi Nari Nam won the silver at Nats the year Sasha was out with the back injury, articles on NNN were EVERYWHERE, just as articles on Sasha had been everywhere the year before when she'd won silver at Nats, just as articles on Michelle had been everywhere when she first burst on the scene, only to be out-everywhere'd briefly by Tara. It's not what they write about you before you've done anything that anybody remembers. It's what they write about you AFTER you've done it that counts. People who know skating still remember Janet Lynn even though she never won an Olympic medal or a World gold. Mark my words, there will be a great big chunk of skating history devoted to Michelle Kwan, and deservedly so, whether you love her or think she's "boring." She's already "done it"; now it's just a question of how much she'll do and on how big a scale. I say it's going to be big. Big, big, big.
Rgirl

 

[Mathman]

Our guest lecturer for today was the renowned Rgirl. Rgirl has graciously agreed to accept questions from the audience. Yes, you there, in the back row.

"Just how long was that triple combined post, Ms. Girl?"

"I will have to consult with my advisor on statistics, Mathman. Oh wait, I fired him last week."

Mathman: "You can't fire me, I quit. But your post was 19422 characters long."

Any other questions?

Mathman: "Yes, I was interested in the part about

We'd get injured when we'd do a piece with extreme positions, like standing on the sides of our necks, without preparation

Do you mean that your feet were on the sides of your neck and you looked overall like a pretzel, or that your necks were on the floor with your legs in the air and your head lolling to the side, like you had just been decapitated?"

MM

PS. All seriousness aside, thanks for taking the time to write all that, Rgirl. Very interesting about the figure skating hinged boot and the research into the mechanics of why triple jumps are so much harder on the body than doubles.

 

[sk8fanconvert]

After just a little while on GSk8 forums, I've realized that there's often little to say after Rgirl's posts other than the thank you and applause. But that's just the new guy sucking up! (Thanks again, though, for the report from Campbell's; I can't believe how long we have to wait for TV to show it.)

Crosstraining for sports, particularly weight training, is actually quite new for many sports- for example, it's only in the last decade that many tennis players, particularly women, routinely lifted weights. It's not too surprising to me that sports cultures are resistant to new training techniques, or that the cultures vary from sport to sport in terms of innovation vs. traditionalism. For example, the triathlon is basically built on the idea of crosstraining!

It has surprised me that I've seen so little on the hinged boot that Rgirl has mentioned. I remember seeing something on Naomi Nari Nam using one, but other than that, nothing. Practically speaking, it may be very difficult to relearn mechanics even with something as seemingly minor as greater ability to flex and extend the ankle. Or it could be a traditionalist aspect of skating culture. It may be that younger skaters will adopt it more quickly. For sure, almost everyone is waiting for someone else to try it out first! That's usually the way these things go (Diffusion of Innovation theory).

Thanks for the interesting ideas.

 

[skatepixie]

I personally dont like to beable to flex at all....just me though...

 

[Fossi]

.



BTW, Sarah didn't just quietly go to the Olympics and win. She was on the cover of TIME magazine. Sarah was TIME's preOlympic choice to win! Michelle was NEWSWEEK's choice. Nobody was hyping Sasha to win the Olympics. It was, after all, her first international competition. So I think all this hype about Sasha getting so much hype is just hype.
Rgirl

Sasha may not have had the cover, but she had a lot of articles. One that sticks in my mind is the one where she basically stated her goal was to "pull a Lipinski" and one mistake by Sarah, Irina, or Michelle and she would have the gold. I also remember the hype on ESPN (if Sasha outskates them, will they LET her win??) So you can't really judge HYPE by the COVER of magazines. There were numerous articles. Hype is hype, no matter how you slice it.

 

[Smiley0884]

Sasha was on the cover of a Jewish magaizne pre-olympics titled "going for the gold" It was a really nice article.