USA Today for the article "It's no stretech to say yoga has benefited skater Sasha Cohen." So, if you are interested in yoga and Sasha and not much else, here is the article for you! An annoying excerpt:
Balance is everything to a skater twirling on one leg on the razor-thin edge of a blade across a smooth ice rink. Sasha retired from competitive skating after winning silver at the 2006 Olympics but says yoga has helped her become stronger than ever. She'll decide this summer about trying out for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. An end to her retirement would be good news for the USA, whose young cast of female skaters seemed destined to mediocrity behind the dominating Asian and Canadian skaters.
I'm sorry, but I don't consider the Canadian skaters to be dominating. Joannie Rochette is lovely, but her wins this season came when those top Asian ladies (Asada and Kim) either faltered or weren't at the competition. And I think it's pretty ridiculous to say that 15-and 16-year-olds who haven't even been to a senior world championships yet are destined to mediocrity.
Additionally, as much as I love, love, love to watch Sasha skate, I'm confused as to where all this revisionist hero worship is coming from. Maybe she'll prove me wrong and be some sort of savior to U.S. female skating next year, but this girl could rarely put two clean (or even, clean enough) programs together and she never won Worlds or the Olympics. I realize that some think she might have a better shot at medaling than the current crop, but I'm not sure why. In 2006, Cohen didn't have to skate against Yu-Na Kim and Mao Asada in the Olympics, and her technical lineup was never as impressive as either of theirs (although, surely her progam components were). Sorry to rant but I think this talk about how Cohen has to come back to "save" American figure skating is going to be my pet peeve until this summer when she finally decides whether she is coming back. And I hope she does come back to prove me wrong! I'd like to see her compete against the ladies out there.
Additionally, what is our judgment of success? Is it simply medaling? Or does the color count? Because seeing Cohen come back and win a bronze (when she's already done better than that) wouldn't be as big a deal for me as seeing, say, Rachael Flatt winning a bronze medal. But I guess I'm in the minority in thinking some of our ladies have (at least an outside) a chance at the podium. Ok I'm done now. OH, except to say that if everyone who's saying it truly believes that Cohen is the only hope at saving U.S. figure skating, they should have been more vocal about it to get her back THIS season so that we could earn three slots in the Olympics, so some of those young mediocre skaters bringing our program down (*sarcasm) would have a shot at going.
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