Cohen sets sights on first world title

DORTMUND, Germany -- Maybe this time she can cast a spell for the full four minutes. Maybe this time Sasha Cohen can avoid the unfortunate bobble, the untimely tumble that kept her off the podium at Olympus and at the last two world championships.

And if she does, the 19-year-old ballerina on figure skates will claim her first world title, dethroning teammate and five-time champion Michelle Kwan, who's in fourth place and all but finished.

"I expect it to go very well," Cohen said yesterday afternoon, after she'd won the short program at the Westfalenhalle with a flawless, graceful, and prudent skate that earned four 6.0s for artistry and put her ahead of Japan's Shizuka Arakawa and Miki Ando going into this afternoon's finale.

"I'm trained, I'm ready, I feel great out there. I feel very confident. I just have to keep believing and attacking."

If Cohen wins, she'll be the first American to beat Kwan at a world championships since Tara Lipinski did it in 1997 in Lausanne, Switzerland, and went on to win the Olympic gold medal a year later. To do it, Cohen will have to go out aggressively in the long program to hold off the Japanese, who both do triple-triple combinations, with the 16-year-old Ando possibly trying a quadruple salchow.

"I'd rather not phrase it `staying in first place,' " said Cohen, who would have won the Olympic gold medal at Salt Lake City if she'd won the long. "I want to go out and win."

Kwan, who has never finished worse than second since 1995, when she was 14, needs a mini-miracle to keep her crown and pass Carol Heiss for most titles by a US woman.

Four years ago in Nice, France, she came out of third place to win when leader Maria Butyrskaya came undone. This time, Kwan not only needs to win the long program, she needs Arakawa to finish third and Cohen fourth.

"I can't be discouraged in situations like this," said Kwan, who hasn't skated in an international competition since she won this event in Washington last year. "I have to find the positives. What can I do?"

It wasn't as if Kwan had a bad outing yesterday. Her program, with its garden-variety triple lutz-double toe combination, was clean. "I did my job," she said. "I did everything."

In fact, Kwan did too much, finishing more than two seconds beyond the 2-minute-40-second limit and taking a mandatory tenth of a point deduction on both her technical and artistic marks. The US federation filed a protest, requesting confirmation of the program's timing, but referee Jan Hoffmann had not made a ruling by the time competition ended late last night.

What's become clear here this week is that a new order has emerged and the reigning medalists are under siege. Russia's Elena Sokolova, last year's runner-up, is buried in 11th. Japan's Fumie Suguri, bronze medalist the last two years, is eighth. And Russia's Irina Slutskaya, the former world champion and Olympic runner-up, is seventh.

It's been a rough week, too, for Newton, Mass., native Jennifer Kirk, who made two mistakes in Wednesday's qualifying and crashed on her triple lutz yesterday, sliding to 16th.

"Maybe I wanted to do it a little too much," said the 19-year-old Kirk, who'd landed her opening triple toe-triple toe combination. "I'll just have to attack the long program. There's no holding back."

With triple-triples now commonplace and quads on the way, making the women's podium is all about boldness. Which is why Cohen, who did a triple lutz-double toe yesterday, had to make sure the rest of her program, from spins to spirals, was incandescent.

Now, all she has to do is do it again with a gold medal on the line. "Seeing what I want to have, knowing it's going to be tough to get there," Cohen mused. "I just have to fight for it."

Though the Russians are out of contention in the women's event, they picked up their third title last night when dancers Tatiana Navka and Roman Kostomarov outpointed Bulgaria's Albena Denkova and Maxim Staviski. "At the end I just thought, `Thank God, we did it,' " said Navka, after she and her partner had received nine 6.0s for artistry.

Exuberant, too, were Kati Winkler and Rene Lohse, whose bronze was the second German medal of the week and the first in dance since 1973. "I can hardly speak right now," said Winkler, who missed the European championships when Lohse reinjured his knee. "I can't believe it."

In fifth, with the best US performance since 1990, were Benjamin Agosto and Tanith Belbin. "It feels wonderful," said Agosto, who with his Canadian partner has improved from 17th three years ago. "We put out three great performances, the best we've done all season. Great way to finish."