Nice, France -A quickly maturing, more sophisticated Sarah Hughes yesterday sailed through her qualifying round at the World Skating Championships and then said, "Ce fut comme a chaque competition. Je voulais seulement sortir en piste et patiner de mon mieux; je dois me qualifier." Well, she didn't actually say that. What she said was, "It was the same as any round. I just wanted to go out and skate my best; I need to qualify." But the French translation of her remarks, provided by local organizers, better fits the impression of worldly presence exuded by the 14-year-old Kings Point resident. Hughes showed up on the French Riviera with a new haircut, more makeup and a veteran's aplomb, despite being drawn into the loaded half of the women's draw for the extra round of scoring initiated at this event a year ago.
Going into tomorrow's short program, Hughes is wonderfully positioned to challenge for a medal by Saturday night's final. Only European champion Irina Slutskaya of Russia and two-time world champ Michelle Kwan finished ahead of Hughes in their morning qualifying group of 23, and skating experts consider the second group of 22 so weak that only leader Maria Butyrskaya of Russia, the reigning world champion, appears a contender.
What Hughes accomplished, in effect, was turn a living-in-the-oncoming-lane danger into a living-in-the-fast-lane adventure. The additional long program, when it debuted in the early 1990s, was used to trim unwieldy fields, and therefore did not require maximum performance from the top skaters. But, for world and European championships beginning in 1999 (though it is not used in the Olympics), this preliminary exercise became one-fifth of the total score.
So, not only does it have obvious physical demands, but it also can lead to chagrin, as when U.S. men's national runner-up Timothy Goebel stumbled behind 14 others in his qualifying skate here Monday. Goebel still sits ninth after the short program, with no hope for a medal.
"It's a matter of stamina, more or less," said Hughes' coach, Robin Wagner, "because you do exactly the same long program in qualifying that you do in the long program. The difficult thing is that it counts." Or, as Hughes demonstrated yesterday, the good thing is that it counts. That's 20 percent of the work done, and done well.
"Wonderful," Wagner said. "That's a really tough group, but I told Sarah, 'That's what you're here for, to compete against the best.' To have it come out Slutskaya, Kwan, Hughes, that's pretty good." Though Hughes cleanly landed only four of six planned triple jumps while Slutskaya, Kwan and Butyrskaya each hit six, Hughes was strong and resourceful, with no glaring mistakes. When a planned triple-triple jump combination (triple toe, triple loop) didn't materialize, with Hughes skipping the second triple, she quickly tossed in a triple-double combo (lutz, toe).
Since her solid third-place finish at the U.S. nationals in February, Hughes declared herself ready for the shorter hairdo Wagner proposed last year, to make her look more grown-up ("And I took her to the hairdresser the next day, before she changed her mind," Wagner said) and began working with a new pair of skate boots.
That she had to skate yesterday at 11 a.m. (5 a.m. on Long Island) didn't faze Hughes any more than the level of firepower in her qualifying group.
"It was a little weird because in America we always skate later at night," she said. "I'm not usually a morning person, but I [practice] at this time every morning at home. I'm not going to complain, because I skated well." Furthermore, Hughes continued to build on the invaluable experience of a second consecutive appearance at the world championships-she finished seventh in Helsinki last year-while another emerging young American skater sat home.
With a sixth-place finish at the junior world championships this month, tiny 15-year-old Californian Sasha Cohen still hasn't met the junior medal requirement for sub-16-year-olds to enter this event.
"She's thrilled," Wagner said last night of Hughes' mood. "Very, very happy. I sensed last year that she was very carefree. Now it's a year later and she's looking back and knowing she finished seventh and wants to do better, as any competitor would. So she's a little less carefree. But she's become a mature young lady rather quickly." Translate the whole Hughes evolution into French and it comes out something like "voila."