TURIN, Italy - If you want to become an artist, visit Italy and study the works of such greats as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo.
If you're a promising young figure skater like Kimmie Meissner and Emily Hughes, being part of the Turin Olympics means learning up-close from masters like Sasha Cohen and Irina Slutskaya.
Cohen and Slutskaya were at their world-class best in the short program Tuesday night, setting up what should be a tremendous free skate finale Thursday night. With only .03 of a point separating them, both know anything less than perfection could be the difference between gold and silver.
Or maybe even bronze since Japan's Shizuka Arakawa is less than a point behind. After that, there's a steep drop to fourth place, with 16-year-old Meissner in fifth and 17-year-old Hughes in seventh.
“I've trained my whole life for this,” Cohen said. “To keep it together and skate well - it's wonderful.”
That's NBC's sentiment too. The network already was planning to spend part of Wednesday night's show hyping the Thursday night broadcast, and now it's definitely worthy of the buildup.
NBC also already had planned to stretch its usual 3.5-hour broadcast to four on Thursday night, and it wasn't to focus on the finals of men's aerials and the women's parallel giant slalom snowboarding. Those events will still be squeezed in, but it could be a tight squeeze if Americans don't do well on the mountains.
Jeret “Speedy” Peterson is the lone hope in aerials. Michelle Gorgone and Rosey Fletcher are the only U.S. entries in the final snowboarding event of these games.
Gorgone is the better bet to make the podium - she's ranked fifth, while Fletcher is 13th. Should neither make it through qualifying, which NBC will show in the afternoon, that likely would mean even more air time for figure skating.
For team sports, you'll have need cable. That's where you'll find live coverage of the women's curling gold and bronze medal matches, and the women's biathlon relay.
Actually, there is a bit of a team element to the Cohen-Slutskaya showdown.
Cohen will be trying to stretch U.S. dominance in women's figure skating to four titles in five Olympics. In case you forgot, the lineage includes Emily's big sis, Sarah, in 2002; Tara Lipinski in 1998 and Kristi Yamaguchi in 1992. (In 1994, the U.S. skipped a beat with Ukrainian Oksana Baiul grabbing gold over American Nancy Kerrigan, who won silver.)
Slutskaya's bonus prize for winning would be giving Russia a clean sweep of figure skating medals at these games, a 4-for-4 run that's unprecedented. No country pulled it off when there were three events either.
Cohen's brilliant routine came after waiting through all 28 other skaters. On Thursday, she'll be second in the six-woman final group.
Skating last: Slutskaya, the reigning world champion.
“Of course, I'm nervous in competition, but I know how to control those nerves,” she said. “I will train the same as always. Nothing changes, nothing new.”
Well, there is one change - the scoring system. Under new guidelines put in place following the pairs judging scandal in Salt Lake City, the short program now counts as half the total score, not one-third.
Instead of seeking a perfect 6.0, skaters now try piling up as many points as possible. That's why the .03 between Cohen and Slutskaya is so infinitesimal. Scanning down the rest of the standings, only 11th and 12th are separated by less.
“It's going to be like skating over again, it didn't count,” Cohen said. “The top three don't really matter. You can be surprised by the situation.”
Like Slutskaya, Cohen also vowed to stick with her training regimen.
“It would be so nice to take (a gold medal) home, but my job here is to enjoy the moment, stay strong and believe in myself,” she said. “What makes a difference is what you do day by day. I am working on a day-by-day basis.”
Are you taking notes, Kimmie and Emily?
In their Olympic debuts Tuesday night, the teens showed they're fast learners - and early contenders for 2010.
Skating second, Meissner posted a personal-best score that kept her on top until Slutskaya pulled off her eye-popping performance in the 18th spot. Meissner was still in the top three until the last few skaters, a very encouraging sign for the runner-up to Cohen at last month's nationals.
“I had so much fun,” Meissner said.
Hughes did, too, living up to the advice Sarah gave her before the competition. Emily left the kiss-and-cry area in third place.
“It was great to go out and do a good, clean program at the Olympics,” she said.
Cohen and Slutskaya were at their world-class best in the short program Tuesday night, setting up what should be a tremendous free skate finale Thursday night. With only .03 of a point separating them, both know anything less than perfection could be the difference between gold and silver.
Or maybe even bronze since Japan's Shizuka Arakawa is less than a point behind. After that, there's a steep drop to fourth place, with 16-year-old Meissner in fifth and 17-year-old Hughes in seventh.
“I've trained my whole life for this,” Cohen said. “To keep it together and skate well - it's wonderful.”
That's NBC's sentiment too. The network already was planning to spend part of Wednesday night's show hyping the Thursday night broadcast, and now it's definitely worthy of the buildup.
NBC also already had planned to stretch its usual 3.5-hour broadcast to four on Thursday night, and it wasn't to focus on the finals of men's aerials and the women's parallel giant slalom snowboarding. Those events will still be squeezed in, but it could be a tight squeeze if Americans don't do well on the mountains.
Jeret “Speedy” Peterson is the lone hope in aerials. Michelle Gorgone and Rosey Fletcher are the only U.S. entries in the final snowboarding event of these games.
Gorgone is the better bet to make the podium - she's ranked fifth, while Fletcher is 13th. Should neither make it through qualifying, which NBC will show in the afternoon, that likely would mean even more air time for figure skating.
For team sports, you'll have need cable. That's where you'll find live coverage of the women's curling gold and bronze medal matches, and the women's biathlon relay.
Actually, there is a bit of a team element to the Cohen-Slutskaya showdown.
Cohen will be trying to stretch U.S. dominance in women's figure skating to four titles in five Olympics. In case you forgot, the lineage includes Emily's big sis, Sarah, in 2002; Tara Lipinski in 1998 and Kristi Yamaguchi in 1992. (In 1994, the U.S. skipped a beat with Ukrainian Oksana Baiul grabbing gold over American Nancy Kerrigan, who won silver.)
Slutskaya's bonus prize for winning would be giving Russia a clean sweep of figure skating medals at these games, a 4-for-4 run that's unprecedented. No country pulled it off when there were three events either.
Cohen's brilliant routine came after waiting through all 28 other skaters. On Thursday, she'll be second in the six-woman final group.
Skating last: Slutskaya, the reigning world champion.
“Of course, I'm nervous in competition, but I know how to control those nerves,” she said. “I will train the same as always. Nothing changes, nothing new.”
Well, there is one change - the scoring system. Under new guidelines put in place following the pairs judging scandal in Salt Lake City, the short program now counts as half the total score, not one-third.
Instead of seeking a perfect 6.0, skaters now try piling up as many points as possible. That's why the .03 between Cohen and Slutskaya is so infinitesimal. Scanning down the rest of the standings, only 11th and 12th are separated by less.
“It's going to be like skating over again, it didn't count,” Cohen said. “The top three don't really matter. You can be surprised by the situation.”
Like Slutskaya, Cohen also vowed to stick with her training regimen.
“It would be so nice to take (a gold medal) home, but my job here is to enjoy the moment, stay strong and believe in myself,” she said. “What makes a difference is what you do day by day. I am working on a day-by-day basis.”
Are you taking notes, Kimmie and Emily?
In their Olympic debuts Tuesday night, the teens showed they're fast learners - and early contenders for 2010.
Skating second, Meissner posted a personal-best score that kept her on top until Slutskaya pulled off her eye-popping performance in the 18th spot. Meissner was still in the top three until the last few skaters, a very encouraging sign for the runner-up to Cohen at last month's nationals.
“I had so much fun,” Meissner said.
Hughes did, too, living up to the advice Sarah gave her before the competition. Emily left the kiss-and-cry area in third place.
“It was great to go out and do a good, clean program at the Olympics,” she said.
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