Fire and ice an inspiring combination

O.C. figure skater takes the Olympic torch and her
dreams closer to Salt Lake City.

San Diego, Ca, Jan. 15 - She had chased its light
through countless lonely mornings across cold skating
rinks.

Chased it from Aliso Viejo to Australia to Helsinki to
Colorado Springs to Paris. For more than half of her
17 years she had longed to bask in its glow. Now Sasha
Cohen, the girl from Laguna Niguel who grew up to
become an Olympic figure skater, held her dream in her
hand.  Standing alone in the night chill, Cohen
received the Olympic flame, then turned and ran down a
stretch of Embarcadero Marina Park on Monday night,
the flame blazing through the darkness, lighting the
way to Salt Lake City.  Cohen, taking part in the
Olympic Torch Relay that will cut through Orange
County today, carried the flame for 2/10 of a mile
before lighting the torch of another runner. It was a
short, yet powerful stretch on Cohen's long road to
Salt Lake City.  "I thought about what it meant to so
many people and what it means to me," Cohen said of
the Olympic flame. "This was really exciting for me."
She passed people yelling congratulations for her
second-place finish Saturday night at the U.S. Figure
Skating Championships, a performance that earned her a
spot in the Olympic Games. She ran past a throng of
PETA members protesting the inclusion of rodeo in a
series of cultural events coinciding with the Salt
Lake Games.  "Say no to rodeo. Don't shame the Games!"
And she ran past her parents, Roger and Galina, who
had traveled so much of a hard road with her.  "I was
very proud," Roger Cohen said, "to see such a powerful
symbol in the hands of my daughter."