Sasha's silver gift

There's a fluidity to her grace that's unusual, that the others lacked; and there was heart in the way she continued after the disasterous start, and in the quality of her skating, again after that start. Her nervouseness when she began made that later control more compelling, gave it a narrative arc. There was none of the fizzing, upbeat triumph of her short programme, but there was something, and it was a gift, to her, to us, or just there.

Shizuka Arakawa won by a substantial margin but played it safe, trading planned jumps in for easier ones. She was beautiful, graceful, flexible. One of the BBC2 commentators gave her the thought "anything Sasha Cohen can do, I can do", and in a way that's true, if you take it abstractly, and leaning over backwards, curved backwards, in a spin or spiral (I forget which), or letting go of a leg while keeping it vertical, she was impressive at things I'm not sure Sasha Cohen can always equal. But still there's something missing.

Irina Slutskaya also resorted to easier jumps, and still fell, departed from her planned programme to try to make up for the problems, but ended third. Sasha, so sure she'd get nothing that she'd taken off her skating constume and had to put it back on, came second. She called it a gift.

A true gift is given without expecting anything in return, but she had worked for that. What she gave, though, was given without knowing, or expecting, that result.

The Southern on her short programme:

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Cohen's program was far from perfect, and it showed in technical marks lower than both Slutskaya and Arakawa. The landing of her double axel was curvy, and she had to fight to save it. The takeoff on her triple lutz could have been cleaner, but she made up for it in her connecting steps, transitions and spirals.

And no one sells a program better. Skating to "Dark Eyes," a Russian folk song, she was expressive for the entire program. She made eye contact with all of the judges, as if she was skating just for them.

When she stood at the edge of the rink, just before starting her straightline footwork, she gave a little shimmy of her shoulders and the crowd roared.

From there, to here:

The Baltimore Sun, Last one standing gets gold:

By Randy Harvey
Sun Reporter
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The silver here went to Cohen, who later called it "a gift.''

Not really. Cohen, 21, skated brilliantly for three minutes. Unfortunately for her, they were the final three of her four-minute program.
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But she fell twice in her warm-up before the final group of six skated their long programs and looked frightened, like a novice instead of the reigning U.S. champion. Nerves? Injuries?

Her night would get worse before it got better. She fell on the front end, the triple lutz, of her opening combination, then almost fell on her triple flip. But just as it seemed the crowd was about to witness a spectacular fall from grace, she began skating like, well, Cohen.

She inserted a combination she hadn't planned, a triple flip-double toe, then landed her next triple-triple.

More important was her expressiveness, her feel for the music from Romeo and Juliet. The judges gave her marks second-best only to Arakawa for artistry and the best marks for interpretation.

"It just wasn't my night,'' Cohen said. But only for one minute.
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