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Even so, getting to the podium won't be a slap shot for Hughes. Cohen, a gifted performer, is as much a master of the mental game as she is of the triple Lutz. At last month's nationals she clipped Kwan twice during the warm-up before their final programs, rattling Kwan enough that she cut short the prep for her jumps. Cohen denied the hockey tactics were intentional, but gamesmanship may be part of her package. "I'm always trying to be on top of the podium," she says. Hampered by a back injury last year, Cohen was erratic in the season's first events but has an ability to transfix an audience with innovative moves that highlight her flexibility. Even without the quad, she may just possess that indescribable elan that sets Olympic champions apart. Oksana Baiul, the 1994 gold medalist, had it, defeating Kerrigan with her exuberant performance; Lipinski had it in Nagano.
It's that elusive esprit that Kwan is hoping to capture, something she hasn't been able to do since her 1998 performance at the nationals, a month before Nagano. Without a coach but with a boyfriend and college classes as part of her life, Kwan says, "I have a different motivation now. I feel I have to take control of my skating at this moment." If she can harness it successfully, Kwan could add Olympic gold to the four world and six national titles she holds.
Hughes' story is remarkable for the way in which she has refused to surrender a normal upbringing for skating. At a time when families think nothing of packing up their skating prodigy and relocating near an elite coach (as did the Yamaguchis and Lipinskis), Hughes and her parents have always made school, not skating, the priority. Even as her abilities on the ice gained national prominence, Hughes continued to be part of the swirl of everyday life with her five brothers and sisters and remained rooted to her home and family in the New York City suburb of Great Neck. She will graduate with her high school class next year, and she takes her SAT review book to every meet. "My parents saw that I was happy living at home and that I could still skate before and after school and spend time with my family," she says.
That time became critically important in 1997, when Hughes turned 12. That was the year her mother Amy, formerly an accountant, was diagnosed with breast cancer. It was also, says her father John, an attorney, the year that his daughter "took ownership of her own skating." Hughes became extremely protective of her mother and began to steer her own skating progress, working with coach Robin Wagner to ensure that she did not stagnate at the junior level. During Hughes' rise from fourth to third to second at her first three senior national championships, her mother dubbed her Dr. Sarah; watching her daughter skate eased Amy's mind and body from the rigors of cancer therapies.