Figure Skating at the 2006 Torino Winter Games:

The skater with the most talent was easy – Sasha Cohen (USA), who had been runner-up at the 2004-05 Worlds. But she had a nasty habit of skating poorly under pressure situations and dropping out of the lead. The skater with the best pedigree was the 2002 silver medalist, Irina Slutskaya (RUS), who had been World Champion in 2002 and 2005, and shortly before Torino, had won her seventh European title, bettering the record of Katarina Witt and Sonja Henie , who had won six Europeans. Another contender was Japan’s Shizuka Arakawa, who was World Champion in 2004, but she had not skated well in the early 2005-06 season. Cohen won the short program, but her lead was almost non-existent. She scored 66.73 to 66.70 for Slutskaya and 66.02 for Arakawa. In the free skate, Cohen skated well, not succumbing to her personal demons, and bettered Slutskaya, who had skated earlier, 116.63 to 114.74. Arakawa was the last skater on the ice, and she skated superbly, scoring 125.32 to win the gold medal, the first ever by an Asian figure skater, and again deny Cohen a major international title, with Slutskaya winning the bronze. Both Cohen and Slutskaya had problems with falls, Slutskaya in the free program, and Cohen in the short.