TOP TEN DECA(DENCE)

Three American and three Japanese women in the top ten after the Ladies' Short Program. Pretty awesome, no?

I'm really hoping Miki Ando goes for the quad, Kimmie Meisner decides to do a Triple Axel, and Emily Hughes continues showing her patented Hughes spunk (as regular readers of this blog know, I have deeply personal reasons for loving the entire Hughes family).

And now, the star of the night: Sasha Cohen was fantastic in the Short Program and now sits in first place ahead of Russia's Irina Slutskaya.

This is good, right?

Right?

Well... if past performance is any indication, leading isn't a very comfortable spot for Sasha, in the long run, especially when the pressure is on.

At the 2004 World Championship she won the Qualifying Round and the Short Program. Only to place 3rd in the Long and 2nd overall. At the 2005 World Championship, she was first in the Qualifying, 2nd in the Short and 2nd in the Long, finishing 2nd overall. Heck, at her first Senior Nationals (2000), she beat Kwan in the Short Program, only to finish 2nd overall. And at her previous Olympics (2002), she was 3rd in the Short Program... 4th overall.

Sasha is a wonderful Short Program skater. But a .03 point difference between her and Slutskaya doesn't leave a lot of room for error in the Long...