Sasha Cohen out of Skate America; Emily Hughes in [Updated]

Sasha Cohen is out of this week's Skate America with tendinitis.

It is the second Grand Prix event this fall from which the 2006 Olympic silver medalist has withdrawn because of the problem in her right calf.

This time, the withdrawal casts significant doubt on whether she can make a successful comeback after three seasons away from Olympic-style skating.

She will replaced at Skate America in Lake Placid, N.Y., by Emily Hughes, who finished seventh at the 2006 Olympics as an eleventh-hour replacement for an injured Michelle Kwan.

[Updated at 10:17a.m. Hughes, 20, who is taking a year off from Harvard University to train full time, missed the last two U.S. Championships with injuries. She has finished two years at Harvard.

By virtue of her 2006 Olympic medal, Cohen is an automatic qualifier for January's U.S. Championships, at which U.S. Figure Skating will pick its two women's singles entrants for the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Hughes now will also receive a bye to nationals because the final qualifying event, Eastern Sectionals, begins just three days after Skate America.  She finished second in last month's North Atlantic Regionals, her first competition in a year.]

-- Philip Hersh

Comments

[M.R.]

Surprise, surprise. Skating fans have been telling you for months, Phil, that Sasha would never compete this season, but you are so enamored with her that you believe every word of her fake PR.

Sasha can't land even easy jumps anymore, and she is lazy and unwilling to put in the training required to compete as a figure skater at age 25. She never had any intention of coming back, but she loves the media to write about her and give her attention, which she is getting plenty of with her fake "comeback". Everyone except you and the rest of the media knew all along that Sasha would make excuses about fake injuries at the last minute to get out of showing up at her events. Same old Sasha.

If you had any journalistic integrity, you would question why she would claim to be going to an "orthopedic surgeon" for tendinitis - that's kind of ridiculous. But you would just believe whatever lame excuse she and her PR team have thought up, just like you believed her pathetic excuses after the fans forced you to question why she was skating in a show for pay two days before she withdrew from her last event, while claiming a slow-developing condition like tendinitis.

[jane]

this doesn't suprise me at all. sasha is not ready to come back to competition, and withdrawing from event after events is not going to help her. like jenny kirk said on her blog, sometimes the fear of failure is much greater than the pain of injury. sasha is in a disadvataged position to go against yuna kim or mao asada for that matter. she has not competed in the past three years and does not have the mentality it takes to get back in the game. while pursuing another olympics is a great goal, it may be too much for someone who never had to ability to pull two clean programs in her competative history!!! so, i think she should respect the other skaters who still have a shot and give up her pursuit for the olympics.

[Jay]

Totally agree with the previous posts. She has made it no secret that she loves being in the spotlight and I see this 'comeback' attempt as more of a publicity stunt since that movie career she's been eyeing since the last olympics has not exactly taken off. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying her intentions weren't totally genuine but come on. It's not like she was born yesterday. It is definitely possible to make a comeback after being absent from competition for a few years - with hard work (see Plushenko, Shen & Zhao). Her stories just does not make sense. One day she's close to doing triple-triples and a couple of days later she's withdrawing from events due to 'injury'. Woudn't it be great if she pulls out of Nationals and has the nerve to petition for a spot on the Olympics team (not that I think she would get one if she did ), especially after all those years she whined about Michelle not retiring and giving other skaters a chance- oh the irony

[Angie]

I searched the Internet today just because I fully expected Sasha to drop out. Her reason should have been: Still Cannot land more than 2 double jumps in a long program. Sorry, but it is true. She is elegant with the best spirals ever, but I don't want to see her fall 3 times and double land jumps at the Olympics AGAIN! Her competition days are over - especially with Japan and So Korea's talent this year. The single skater Americans are not likely to do well at all at the Olympics.

[Kathryn]

Sasha is following in the footsteps of Michelle Drama Kween who pretended like she was ready to compete but had been passed up by the younger competitors who could outjump her. Remember when Kwan was given a pass to go to the Olympics, she wasted the money and time of everyone by prancing around at the freezing cold Opening Ceremony and then next day said her groin hurt and she had to withdraw. Sasha will do the same thing. The want media attention, fame and a free ticket to the Olympics.

[Rose]

Oh No! One of the clunky Hughes girls is back. I was looking forward to the day we did not have to see them clunk their way through a program. The USA's chances of winning any medal are dim! I can't think of one US female skater who is good enough for the Olympics - compared to other countries' skaters.

[Minnesota]

Hey Kathyrn have you heard of class? It's something that you don't have any of. Michelle kwan had fame and media attention before she went to the olympics in Italy. She is the most decorated figure skater in history with 64 gold medals. She may have not been able to jump like the younger ones because she always beat them every where else.