TVSquad

Tonight is the night that NBC has been waiting for: the gold medal showdown in ladies' figure skating. American Sasha Cohen enters tonight's free skate on top, but by only .06 of a point over Russian Irinia Slutskaya. Expect to stay up until midnight for the outcome of that competition (or you can get the results from any news website).

Also tonight, to fill the time between figure skating competitors, the women snowboarders compete in the parallel giant slalom. Curling, hockey, bobsledding and marathon speed skating are also on the schedule:

The event that usually garners the most talk is women's figure skating, and it begins tonight with the short program. With Michelle Kwan out of the competition due to injuries, American skater Sasha Cohen gets the spotlight. And, Emily Hughes, the younger sister of 2002 Olympic gold medal figure skater Sarah Hughes, will also hit the ice. No pressure, Emily. Despite all the excitement over Sasha's modeling contracts and Emily's famous sister, Russian skater Irina Slutskaya is still favored for gold.

Also on the ice tonight, speed skaters Chad Hedrick, Shani Davis, Joey Cheek and Derek Parra race each other in the 1500m. Hedrick, Davis, and Cheek have all won gold medals so far in these games.

Here's the schedule on all of NBC's networks:

My favorite athlete from the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City was Sarah Hughes. She wasn't expected to win a medal, but she piqued peaked at exactly the right time. She skated a flawless final program and, thanks to some bobbles and falls by her teammates, she ended up on the top of the medals podium. But, where is Sarah today? She was only 16 when she won gold so she's not too old to skate. Heck, Michelle Kwan has been a part of the Olympics since Lillehammer in 1994 (sadly, she had to withdraw from the games yesterday due to injury).

I did a little nosing around the internet and found Sarah. She's a student at Yale, where studies come first, boys come second, and figure skating is somewhere after that (although she has been hosting some skating events for charity). Sarah will be in Italy for the games, however. She'll be doing some sideline reporting for MSNBC and she'll be cheering on her little sister, Emily, the alternate skater who will take Michelle Kwan's place.