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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, California
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

Alexandra Pauline "Sasha" Cohen (born October 26, 1984) is an American figure skater. She is the 2006 U.S. National Champion, 2003 Grand Prix Final Champion and 2006 Olympic silver medalist.

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Career summary 1.2 Coaching changes 1.3 Skating trademarks 1.4 Television 1.5 Film 1.6 Additional notes 1.7 Records and achievements 1.8 Competitive highlights 2 Programs 3 References 3.1 Biography 3.2 Scoring info 4 External links 5 Navigation

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.^[1] Her sister, Natalia ("Natasha"), began college at Barnard College in August 2006. A gymnast from an early age, Cohen switched to figure skating when she was seven years old.

Sasha Cohen rose to prominence in the skating community during the 2000 United States Figure Skating Championships. Just up from juniors, Cohen was in first place after the short program. She fell to second after the free skating, but qualified for the world team. While she was technically too young to go to the World Figure Skating Championships, there was a loophole at the time that if she medaled at the World Junior Figure Skating Championships, she would be allowed to go to senior worlds. Cohen was unable to medal at world juniors and so did not go to senior worlds.

Cohen was unable to compete at the 2001 Nationals due to a stress fracture, but took back her silver medal at the 2002 Nationals, earning her a trip to the Olympics. 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. 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."

During December 2006, Cohen announced that she needed "a little down time from competing" and that she will not defend her US Figure Skating Championship title in 2007. She again stressed that her "major goals" are the 2009 World Figure Skating Championships and the 2010 Olympics; "I know I want to be in Vancouver for the 2010 Olympics."^[2]

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.

Cohen is known for being an extremely talented skater, though her critics say she has never skated two clean programs in a row.^[3][4] 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 the 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.

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?. She appeared in Episode 7 of the second season of Project Runway wherein designers were challenged to design a skating dress for her. The winning dress (by Zulema Griffin) 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.^[5] Cohen has also appeared in the television crime drama CSI:NY.

In the scheduled 2007 release of the Don Johnson movie Moondance Alexander, Cohen will be playing Fiona Hughes. The film is now in post-production.^[6] At the 2006 Academy Awards, Cohen served as a guest correspondent for Inside Edition. This experience led to an encounter with Ben Stiller and a discussion about having a part in a future comedy about figure skating, something Cohen said she would enjoy participating in. This film, where Cohen appears as herself, is titled Blades of Glory and stars Will Ferrell. Ben Stiller is the producer. It was released on March 30, 2007.

• On November 29, 2006, Cohen appeared at the seventy-fourth lighting of the Christmas tree at New York's Rockefeller Center. Cohen skated during Christina Aguilera's performance of a song from her new album.^{[citation needed]}
• 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 Russian.^[7]
• In early 2006, Cohen wore 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."^[8] Recent photos in the autumn of 2006 show that she is no longer wearing one.
• Cohen graduated from Futures High School in Mission Viejo, California in 2002.^{[citation needed]}

• Olympic silver medalist (2006)
• World Championships silver medalist (2004, 2005)
• United States National Champion (2006)
• ISU Grand Prix Final Champion (2003)
• World Championships bronze medalist (2006)
• Marshalls Worlds Figure Skating Challenge gold medalist (2004)

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

Season	Short Program	Long Program	Exhibition
2006–07
2005–06	Dark Eyes Russian folk song choreographed by Nikolai Morozov and David Wilson	Romeo and Juliet Soundtrack from the 1968 movie by Nino Rota, choreographed by Nikolai Morozov and David Wilson	Don't Rain on My Parade by Barbra Streisand
			God Bless America by Celine Dion
2004–05	Dark Eyes Russian folk song choreographed by Nikolai Morozov	Pas de deux from The Nutcracker by Tchaikovsky, choreographed by Igor Shpilband, Marina Zueva	Don't Rain on My Parade by Barbra Streisand
2003–04	Malagueña by Ernesto Lecuona, choreographed by Nikolai Morozov and Tatiana Tarasova	Swan Lake by Tchaikovsky, choreographed by Tatiana Tarasova and Robin Wagner	Romeo and Juliet choreographed by Tatiana Tarasova
2002–03	Malagueña by Ernesto Lecuona, choreographed by Nikolai Morozov and Tatiana Tarasova	Piano Concerto No. 2 by Rachmaninoff, choreographed by Nikolai Morozov	Romeo and Juliet choreographed by Tatiana Tarasova
			One Day I'll Fly Away from Moulin Rouge! by Nicole Kidman
2001–02	My Sweet and Tender Beast by Doga, choreographed by John Nicks and Sasha Cohen	Carmen by Georges Bizet, choreographed by John Nicks and Sasha Cohen	Hernando's Hideway by Ella Fitzgerald, choreographed by John Nicks and Sasha Cohen
			Aria by Heitor Villa-Lobos, choreographed by John Nicks, Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sasha Cohen
2000–01	My Sweet and Tender Beast by Doga, choreographed by John Nicks and Sasha Cohen	Dark Eyes Russian folk song, orchestrated by London Festival Orchestra, choreographed by John Nicks and Sasha Cohen	Anytime, Anywhere by Sarah Brightman, choreographed by John Nicks, Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sasha Cohen
			To Love You More by Celine Dion, choreographed by John Nicks and Sasha Cohen
1999–2000	Baroque Selections by Vivaldi and Albinoni, choreographed by John Nicks and Sasha Cohen	Violin Concerto by Mendelssohn, choreographed by John Nicks and Sasha Cohen	Madame Butterfly by Puccini, choreographed by John Nicks and Sasha Cohen

1. ^ Bloom, Nate. "The Tribe goes to Torino: Sketches of Jewish Olympic-Bound Athletes", Jewish World Review, February 16, 2006. Retrieved on December 23, 2006.
2. ^ "Cohen pulls out of 2007 national championships", ABC News, December 22, 2006. Retrieved on December 23, 2006.
3. ^ Arica Dixon. "Is Sasha Cohen Cursed?", Rampway Online (student-run online magazine at Georgia State University), 2006-03-29. Retrieved on September 27, 2006.
4. ^ John Henderson. "Proof of greatness: Perennial second-place finisher Sasha Cohen tries to silence her critics with a national title", DenverPost. Retrieved on September 27, 2006.
5. ^ Sasha Does Hollywood!. SashaCohen.com. Retrieved on April 17, 2006.
6. ^ Moondance Alexander at the Internet Movie Database
7. ^ Athletes - Sasha Cohen. NBCOlympics.com. Retrieved on February 17, 2007.
8. ^ Figure Skating - Sasha Cohen's Mailbag. NBCOlympics.com. Retrieved on April 17, 2006.

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

• 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

• SashaCohen.com - official website
• Sasha Cohen at the United States Figure Skating Association
• Sasha Cohen at the International Skating Union biography page

• Sasha Cohen at the Internet Movie Database
• NBCOlympics.com - Profile
• Sasha's U.S. Olympic Team bio - Q&As, photos, wallpapers
• OCFSC - Orange County Figure Skating Club