At the Palavela, other skaters had arrived to practice their routines to gear up for the competition at hand. Sasha knew she had a pretty formidable competition to deal with. There was perennial champion Irina Slutskaya of Russia, the favourite, Shizuka Aragawa of Japan, a sleeper contender for a medal. And then there was the home favourite, Carolina Kostner of Italy. She had won bronze at the European and World championships, raising expectations she might provide Torino its "Cathy Freeman" moment.
Sasha got to the Palavela to further tweak her program. She got to the dress room to change into her outfit, which is normally an easy task, but today, it's harder than usual.
"Coach, I can't fit into my outfit,"said Sasha towards her coach, who was standing at the guardrail in the rink itself watching other skaters practice.
"What? That can't be right. Did you have the dress washed recently?", the coach replied.
"No not really, not in the last couple of days, as I had worn other outfits."
"Go try on the others, Sasha, and see what happens."
So Sasha made her way back into the dressing room and changed again and again, and none of her skating outfits fit her, sending her into outright anger.
"I don't believe it! None of them fit!", Sasha yelled at her coach.
"Wait a minute, I have an idea. Sasha, would you mind standing up against the wall, I need to see something," the coach asked of Sasha. "Uh, OK."
Her coach brought out a tape measure, and discovered something startling: Sasha had grown taller.
"Um, Sasha, I found the reason why your outfits don't fit you anymore, and you aren't going to believe what I'm about to tell you. You gotten taller."
"WHAT??? No way. How on earth did that happen," Sasha replied with fear and trepedation.
"Actually Sasha, it's not all that uncommon for women your age to grow another couple of inches. I had a friend back in college, and despite being 21, she shot up 4 inches, true story.", the coach said as he tried to calm her down.
"Why don't you ask another skater if they would let you borrow one of their outfits?", the coach suggested to Sasha.
"All right, not a problem." Sasha made her wasy to the concourse, and bumped into Shizuku, who was stretching before heading onto the ice.
"Oh hi Shizuku, do you mind if I ask you for a favour?", Sasha asked her.
"OK," replied Shizuku, and the two made their way into the change room, and Shizuku gave her a sprakling maroon sequined dress, which Sasha had secretly liked for a while.
"Thanks, Shizuku. I'm so grateful for this." Sasha said, giving hre thanks to one of her chief rivals for gold.
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