Last night was the lady's figure skating long program. The gold was up for grabs.
Sometimes the commentators can be so dramatic and emotionally sadistic. After the competition, the NBC guy, who narrated the results, emphasized how Slutskaya and Cohen waited four years for this chance to skate in four minutes and hopefully win the gold. They would have to wait another four years for this opportunity. In four minutes Slutskaya's dream ended, he added that this might be her last Olympic.
Sometimes people lose the point. It's sort of that saying, "if you aim high enough and missed the stars atleast you'll land in the moon." Slutskaya aimed for gold, she missed, it's not the end of the world. She was fortunate to have tons of oppurtunity to go to the olympics. She had the Silver and Bronze olympic medals, tons of World titles, European titles, Russian titles. Her motivation, her inspiration, her personaility can't be captured in a gold medal. Hopefully she'll realize this and just brush it off and not waste her life pondering about the what ifs.
Slutskaya, the favorite, buckled and skated pretty tight. The pressure of a "Russian sweep" might have gotten to her or maybe some bad news about her mother distracted her. She ended up getting the bronze.
Cohen got silver. She didn't have a good warm up and as the commentator noted, her doubt of winning the gold was seen in her eyes. They also kept pointing out that one of her legs was wrapped (a possible injury). It looked really dire for Cohen in the beginning of her program. She fell twice in a row. Psychologically this was bad for her because she had a history of "falling" apart and losing concentration if something went wrong. A good thing happened; she fought really hard to get the silver, and she never gave up. She was into the character she portrayed, really passionate, and she took it one element at a time. After those two falls, she successfully executed her jumps and finished the program strong.
The gold went to Japan's Shizuka Arakawa. She was the first Japanese woman to medal at the Olympic, the first to get the gold, and the first Japanese to medal in this Olympic 2006. After seeing Cohen's program, she played it smart and "conservative" by not risking a triple triple combination. She was into the music and she had a clean program. Out of the top three she was the most composed and relaxed.
I felt sorry for Slutskaya because she was so close. However when she skated she didn't let her personality show (she was nervous). Even though Cohen got silver, I'm glad that she fought through and finished the rest of her program with a "Zing." I'm glad that Arakawa won, it's just good for her confidence (in a way she played the media rather than the other way around).
Posted by Michael Diezmos at February 24, 2006 6:04 PM