Yes the psychology of skating is that you win once and then there's little point continuing.
It depends on a skater, what one's goals are in life.
Tara Lipinski won only once WC at 14 and Olys at 15, and has not been off TV since... She is a media/host/commentator celebrity, with her own shows and a steady career.... that's longevity for you..
Sarah Hughes won only once, at 15 and given her family's back ground and history, would not think to live her life without great education and a respectable career. She finished high school with honors, and went to Yale, majored in Poli-Sci and then to University of Pennsylvania Law School...
Had she stayed and kept banging her body on ice, who knows what her future might have been.
And yet i've seen a lot of negativity against Lipinski and Hughes, not because they were young, but because many fans wanted "the other girl to win".. After 2002 "those fans" even started spreading rumors about Hughes' mental condition handicap she supposedly had from birth. And some fans of "that same girl" still finding faults with Lipinski after her every public appearance..
However, I certainly think there's a lot to be said for winning and then continuing and maybe winning more. I think for example, Hanyu ascended up a notch for winning two Olympic Gold Medals.
Plushenko went to 4 Olys, and has 2 Golds (1 singles and 1 team), and 2 silvers. Skated from 1990's into 2014. But... not many were happy about it, especially on english-language FS chats and forums. Found every possible excuse to find "something wrong with him" and critiqued him for "taking up space of the younger guys and holding back progress".
So basically, there is NO truth in pro or con "longevity in skating" argument. It is all about skaters' choice.
And weather it is good or bad, all depends if one likes a person/skater or not, and the "rhetoric" is adjusted accordingly...
While I understand completely Zagitova's decision to retire, separate from that, it's frustrating that there is such high turnover in ladies skating.
It's not about "you". It's about a skater, whose legal obligations are to show up and skate one's best at the assigned competitions, to conduct themselves properly in public while competing. The rest is optional..
The Olympic Gold - which is just one competition- in ladies is often just down more to your birthday and being as young as possible at the perfectly right time.
One's birthday is administratively determining factor, in terms of cut-off dates, in many aspects of life - school, university, jobs, government programmes, quotas. Sometimes people do miss once in a life time opportunity or a major financial benefit because of it. That's life.
I feel like in ladies skating, that one medal is not necessarily everything - there's much to be applauded for those ladies who have long careers too.
It does not matter "what it is" to you or to me. it's about what a skater thinks "is everything" to him or her.
I think this whole thing answers the question of why everyone overreacts when a lady has a bad skate and the same thing doesn't happen in mens.
not too many men had a "good skate" lately... they lowered the bar on their gender..
. In any case, all the best to Alina. I will miss her beautiful face.
