Trying to top or even compare "tragedies" is a fool's errand by any standard and not what this thread is about anyway. [EDIT: This is not a reference to anything 76Olympics posted, but rather my feelings in general.] Of course all my hopes and best wishes go to 76Olympics and her child.
As for whether or not to continue posting on this thread, ie, Orchid's reply to 76Olympics, I only saw this thread for the first time on 4-1-06. A few people may want to say something, repetitious though things may be. Naturally nobody has to read them, especially mine.
First of all, I think I'm the third person who wishes to tell Ogre Mage that her Post #1 was superb. Not only was it better than the article, but as I was reading it I thought for a moment, "I'm guess Ogre Mage had to copy more of the article onto the board because of some glitch. Wow, this is the most well-written article on figure skating I've ever read," which immediately made me realize that what I was reading on OM's post couldn't possibly be an AP, USFSA, or any standard figure skating writer's article. It
had to be Ogre Mage's writing. It was too good to be by any of the "pros."
Ogre Mage's post:
One thing I'm particularly glad you mentioned was the unusual lack of luck Cohen had in terms of Worlds and to a lesser extent, the Olympics. As I watched Cohen's career, often her best skates were early in the season, during the GPS. I've talked before about Tarasova's black and white "Swan Lake" as being "the one that got away" program. In fall of '03, as I saw Sasha skate Tarasova's B/W "Swan Lake," I thought, "If she can't win Worlds with this [against what I knew would be her competition] she either doesn't want it or she's jinxed." One could argue, "Well Sasha fired Tarasova," but as far as I know, who knows? One version of the story says it was Sasha's mother, another version is that Tarasova dropped Sasha because she disobeyed her and fulfilled her contract to do the ISU December cheezefest. Cohen was sick and TAT didn't want her to skate Cheeze so she could rest and recover to win the GPF. But if Cohen didn't skate the cheezefest, she'd be in trouble with the ISU, which Tarasova couldn't understand because "Is better to win important international competition."
So Sasha skates both Cheeze and GPF, doing poorly at Cheeze and coming in 2nd at GPF. But more importantly, which no one could know at the time, Cohen (whether if was Mom or Sasha, it doesn't really matter) leaving Tarasova made her available for Arakawa, whom Tarasova transformed during the three weeks they worked together before Worlds from a steady jumper with under-rotated 3/3s, gorgeous edges, great beauty, and not much else into an all-around champion threat who Sasha had always easily beaten before.
Meanwhile, Sasha's mother chose Robin "I'm just going to make a few minor music changes to 'Swan Lake'" Wagner for her daughter's coach. I do think Sasha's jump technique improved with Wagner and improved quickly, it's too rude to say what I think Wagner did to Tarasova's "Swan." Also, aside from Sasha herself with her '03 blue and yellow majorette costume, I'd never seen anyone make Sasha look bad in a costume until Wagner. With the high turtleneck and low-hipped "tu tu" style feathered skirt, it made Sasha, who is naturally long-torsoed, look as if her five-foot frame was four-feet of head and torso and one foot of legs. And the choreography was as god-awful as I have ever seen.
The reason I wrote kind of a map of what happened, ie, but for the change from Tarasova to Wagner, Sasha would have had an incredible program that she did, at least in the fall, extremely well and Shizuka would not have been able to go to Tarasova as a coach, who, quite literally turned Shizza from a beautiful also-ran into a 3/3/2, fully dropped arch Ina Bauer jaw-dropper. Lest we forget, Shizza won Japanese Nationals in the late '90s, went to Worlds once, then was replaced by Fumie and thus Shizza didn't go to Worlds for five years. I can't help but wonder if she hadn't had those three weeks with Tarasova in '04 how her story might have turned out. That's another thread.
Anyway, '04 Worlds is one example that Ogre Mage brought up in which Sasha skated very well, at least well enough to have probably won Worlds with a well-trained version of Tarasova's b/w "Swan Lake." But ironically, Team Sasha's own choices set in motion a series of events that prevented her from even having a chance at winning Worlds, ie, getting Wagner's awful and COMPLETELY redone "Swan Lake" and giving Shizuka the opportunity to have Tarasova as her coach, which enabled her to skate at a whole new level.
And that's just a detailed example of what seemed to happen throughout Sasha's career, thus far. Some might say it's a more expanded version of what's happened to Michelle with the Olympics. Or if you want to get into a
really hard luck case, Angela Nikodinov.
Having had tragedy in my own family and loved ones and having worked with head injury and spinal cord para- and quadriplegics, plus those afflicted with other devastating diseases, of course I wouldn't call any athlete's career that includes an Olympic silver medal a "tragedy" by any means. She's met with frustrating and bitter disappointment made worse by the constant drumbeat of the media: Failed again, failed again. All the other "baby ballerinas" that came on the scene with Sasha have either stopped skating or been taken out of skating by injury. Naomi Nari Nam is perhaps, and I hope, the exception if she can find success in pairs. Sasha's situation is only "tragic" in the rarefied and relatively small world of athletes with great physical gifts who failed to live up to their potential. But tragic in terms of the real world--nope. She's just another young person who got smacked in the face with the disillusions of misfortune despite exceptional talent and hard work.
Still I feel badly for Sasha because I know she's not old enough to really
believe that life is truly chaos, and certainly not nearly old enough to understand it. Both her love of skating and her love for her family have taken hits. But Jenny Kirk and Angela Nikodinov, to name just two, certainly have had to endure much worse. Sasha's plight seems big right now because of the Olympics and Worlds, and because this was the season when it
seemed as if things would actually come together for her and all her work and experience would finally pay off.
I also think some people are reacting differently to Sasha than they have in the past because, especially after Worlds, I think the exhaustion made it so she couldn't hold up her armor in front of the media and we saw the genuinely vulnerable side of Sasha, which clearly she has not wanted the public to see. Also, IMO, Sasha's heart is being broken over her first grapplings with the reality of family collapse and the false aspects of "the American dream." ie, "They tell you that if you work hard and are a good person that you will succeed. What they don't tell you is that you can do all that and just as easily fail." The only reason we're talking about Cohen is that the life lessons she's learning, which millions of people in the US learn every day, if not every minute, is that Sasha's happened on the world stage with the media and figure skating commentators examining it.
Another thing that occurred to me while watching the "Season Review" of skating of ESPN is how the same color medal at the same event can be vastly different in value. Belbin and Agosto's Olympic silver and World bronze medals are considered triumphs by the media and themselves. Sasha's Olympic silver and World bronze are considered failures by same. I wrote in another post about how GSer BronzeisGolden's name is representative of the difference between the actual medal and what it represents to the skater's fans and, hopefully, the skater. I said in the post that I hoped someday Sasha would be able to see that, under the circumstances, her Olympic silver medal personally represents gold. Why? Because after collapsing on her first jump pass, an intended 3/2/2, and awkwardly putting both hands down on her second jump pass--literally the worst first 20 seconds of a program I have ever seen--she fought for the rest of her performance of "Romeo and Juliet," making it, for me, absolutely the most beautifully skated, the more gorgeously choreographed, the most effectively musically interpreted, the most striking costumed, and imbued with the most moving and genuine characterization I've ever seen in ladies singles skating.
However, the reality is that the world of figure skating and its fans see Sasha's Olympic and World results as flops. Speaking only for myself, I find it sad to watch someone, no matter who it is, go through these kinds of things, eg, my heart ached even more for Irina. Of course Sasha's "flops" aren't even in anywhere near the same category as watching the many other horrible things I've seen happen to loved ones, friends, patients, and the world in general. But as Oscar Wilde said, "There are two tragedies in life. One is gaining your heart's desire. The other is losing it."
Anyway, even if Sasha's competitive career is over, it doesn't necessarily mean her skating career is over. I think the only international medal Paul Wylie ever won, at age 27, was his Olympic silver; yet Paul is one of the most beloved skaters today, still remembered for his rich
professional career, not his eligible one. However, Paul was fortunate in that he won his Olympic silver and turned pro at a time when pro skating was just starting perhaps its one and only Golden Age. Same for Kurt Browning, who, despite having won four World titles, couldn't even get on the podium at either the '92 or '94 Olympics.
If Sasha does stos competing and just continues skating with COI, I can't see her being satisfied with one solo and one group program on tour every spring and summer. And although SOI offers a far more challenging and intense artistic and technical skating experience than COI, if SOI offered Sasha a contract and she did join now, she would have to give up her Olympic eligibility, which I also can't see her being satisfied with. OTOH, the years between 20 and 25 are when women especially go from being able to fairly easily recover from their injuries, if they even have them, to becoming less and less able to recover from injury. Since Sasha already seems to have had a somewhat chronic back injury since her teens, her body may ultimately be the thing that decides what she'll do in the future. But, at least right now, I think the "How will history remember Sasha?" question is a bit premature.
(OFF-TOPIC: I think the five years from about age 17-18 to 22-23 when Shizuka was off the Japanese World team was the best thing that ever happened to her in terms of having a body health enough to enable her to become Olympic champion at age 25.)
At least up until now, what I'll remember Sasha for are how she skated and who she was at two events: (a) The little red hummingbird of a thing who skated at '00 Nationals; and (b) her Torino Olympic LP skate, which I described earlier.
If I had to give Sasha a name to characterize her skating thus far, it would be "Flawed Perfection." An oxymoron, which is, of course, the combination of two incongruous or contradictory terms. But for me, that's the equation for Sasha, at least so far. It's much of what makes Sasha's skating exciting to watch and also much of what makes her skating maddening to watch.
If Sasha's body holds up and she is able to continue to compete but cannot solve her consistency problems, of course she'll lose out on championships. However, we, the audience--at least those who like Sasha or could like a consistent Sasha--will also lose. We will lose out on being able to watch
what might have been one of the most stunningly beautiful skaters ever to grace the sport. Sasha's loss is our loss, too.
Interesting thread topic, Ogre Mage. Thanks for starting the thread, and doing so with such a beautiful and beautifully written post. Wish I'd seen it sooner.
Rgirl
is another one, but this thread's about Sasha. Give her a beautiful program, well put together moves in the field, in short, a true program, not a list of items to tick off, and she put her gifts to the task and delivered. Why she couldn't land all the jumps every time? at least once? when it counted? For reasons similar to many, many great (and perhaps less gifted) skaters who have come before her (Olympic champions Kristi Yamaguchi and Scott Hamilton come to mind), who have been luckier in competing for their big titles against a lesser field in terms of jump consistency. It's made out to be a big deal in Sasha's case because her talent is so striking and unique; the eye demands perfection in every respect when it sees what her obvious natural gifts are. And sometimes a preponderance of natural gifts actually gets in the way of developing grit and perseverance as qualities in a person, because you're taught that you're worthy because of what you were born with, not what you work hard to do; you expect your talent to carry you through, and you don't learn to push through as effectively when it doesn't, as effectively as your less talented but more persevering peers may have learned to do. I know of this firsthand because I've had that experience time and time again in my professional life; this doesn't make the person who's brought up to feel that way a bad person or arrogant in any way, but some will beg to differ.
