On Sasha Cohen

I have two words for Sasha Cohen: Amelie Mauresmo. The 26-year-old Frenchwomen, possessed of one of the most beautiful tennis games in the WTA, was saddled for years with the labels of "choker" and "head case," but at the end of 2005, she turned things around by winning the WTA Year-End Championships. She followed that up by winning the 2006 Australian Open, and has won two tournaments since then. So far, she is one of the few top seeds who hasn't fallen in Miami at the Nasdaq-100, the tour's largest Tier 1 tournament, and she is currently ranked number 1 in the world.

It was heartbreaking to watch Cohen not be able to pull off a gold-medal skate at the Olympics, and perhaps even more heartbreaking to see her not pull one off at the recent Figure Skating World Championships. Cohen is 21; her skating career does not have to be over. In terms of artistry, she is the best female figure skater I have ever seen. Peggy Fleming, who served as a commentator for the World Championships, said that Cohen was one of the best skaters she had ever seen in her life, but perhaps, Fleming said, Cohen is simply not a competitor.

Perhaps. Olympic gold medal-wise, she has company. Neither Irina Slutskaya nor Michelle Kwan won Olympic gold, though both broke records in the other titles they won, and Slutskaya did so under rather amazing circumstances. Cohen won the U.S. Nationals in 2006, but that is the first gold she has won. If she retires without winning a world championship, it will be a bizarre footnote in figure skating history forever.

Cohen obviously has something big going on mentally that causes her to do poorly at big moments. When she brought the house down with her Olympic short program, I felt myself gearing up for what might happen in the free skate, and sure enough--Cohen made a major mistake.

During the free skate practice at Worlds, Cohen's coach had her use some of her time doing visualization exercises. That is not a bad idea, but what Cohen needs is a really talented hypnotherapist. Mauresmo needed it, too, but she managed to pull herself out of her slump some other way. Cohen may not be that lucky.