Chat With Bush Makes Ceremony Even More Special for Skater Sasha Cohen
Saturday, February 09, 2002
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SALT LAKE CITY — This is one phone call Sasha Cohen won't ever forget. Neither will her mother.
The figure skater was talking to her mother on her cell phone as President Bush stood among the U.S. athletes at the opening ceremony Friday night. Seeing an opportunity, she passed her phone to Bush and asked if he'd say hello.
He took the phone with a smile and obliged.
'"This is the president speaking'," Cohen recalled Bush saying. He then spoke to her mother for about a minute.
"First he asked me how I was and where I lived," Galina Cohen, said Saturday from her home in Laguna Niguel, Calif. "He told me my daughter was very well behaved."
The 17-year-old Olympian said Bush didn't know her name before she introduced herself, but he did know she was a skater.
"He asked me about my skating, and where I'm from, and all kinds of things about the Olympics," she said Saturday morning before returning to California to train for the women's competition, which begins Feb. 19.
"He was really personable, and great to talk to. It made opening ceremonies an even more exciting experience."
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