So Aliona is human and she likes to get what she wants. And she's strong and pretty tough that way.
More power to her for knowing what she wants and going after it, and btw, succeeding.
Meanwhile, I don't cotton to the over-adulation to the point of having to give Aliona credit way back from 2010 for renewing the current trend we are seeing in catsuits!
(this is in reference to gnarly debate from another thread
) But yep, I think Aliona deserves a lot of respect. Sure, she's not perfect, and I have some differing views re how she tends to look at her career in some respects, but no biggie. I don't blame Aliona for being human and for preferring to leave some pain behind, and for apparently not acknowledging the pain she may also have caused others.
Aliona appears to have found love with Liam Cross, so it's a pretty low blow to suggest she'd leave him at the drop of a hat. I think her husband completely loves and supports her, and they appear to make each other happy. It's nice for Aliona that she found someone seemingly 'normal' and down-to-earth to love her and to help support her goals. It's cool he's there for her during what has to be a difficult transition away from a hard-driving, all-encompassing competitive life.
I too have been chuckling over the 'sour grapes' comment in relation to Aliona. OGM six-time World champion Diva Aliona surely don't live on the scale of 'sour grapes' 'tude and she's obviously never even contemplated what that means, forget about what they might taste like.
We don't know the context or Aliona's tone of voice, or whatever of this interview. Based on having previously seen Aliona in interviews, she strikes me as an athlete and champion who is not overly self-reflective. She seems to say what she thinks about what she's asked and not worry overmuch or stay angsty about the past, because she's always moving and doing and pushing forward.
I don't get the sense that Aliona has anything against Sui/Han. S/H don't have anything to do with decisions of Chinese judges either. S/H were simply straight-up S/M's biggest rival for gold in Pyeongchang. Maybe Aliona just don't care so much for S/H's skating as much as she does her other former rivals.
I think Sui/Han have indeed looked at what other pairs were doing each year when Sui was rehabbing and they were preparing to come back for the last half of the season to try and slay their competition. Sure there may be some slight similarity in movement or program layout or thematics that S/H and their choreographer utilized from S/M's Olympic program. That's not out of the realm of possibility. I didn't notice it because S/H have their own distinct style. And to be honest, neither of S/H's last year's programs were that great -- they were serviceable. S/H just skated them the absolute best they could and put their own personality stamp on their programs in the process. They freakin' willed themselves to win, because they actually weren't in top form.
And fs fans, please realize that the sport is built on the idea of
copying or emulating the best moves that we see, usually from winners or trendsetters who have the best programs. It's not a negative. As Vanessa James has said, "It's cool, and it's a compliment" to see other pairs teams emulating some of their moves. That's how it's always been and will continue to be in figure skating, because that's how the sport develops and grows.
Axel Paulsen and Ulrich Salchow were simply gliding around on the ice experimenting, and that's how their eponymous jumps were born, which others tried out to the point where these experimental jumps eventually became the standard-bearers for turning figure skating into acrobatic skating, after the powers that be stopped eyebrow-raising and pearl-clutching.
Before Belousova/Protopopov's balletic aesthetic innovations in pairs skating, we did not have death spirals nor the dominant Russian aesthetic... Before Moskvina's creative innovations, we did not have pairs combo spins, etc. In recent years, choreographers, Julie Marcotte, John Kerr, Charlie White, Benoit Richaud, Shae Lynn Bourne, et al have brought exciting movement innovation to pairs (and the latter two to singles as well).
New lift positions are being created all the time. And the ice dance cross-fertilization with pairs has made pairs and ice dance the hottest disciplines IMO. Let's not forget that John Z who coaches Denney/Frazier and James/Cipres was trained in the last years of his competitive career by Moskvina. New and interesting ways of moving and the catch-blade lift position were created by Aliona, with input from Ingo (because let's not forget that Ingo was innovative in pairs well before he met Aliona). And Robin was not just standing there like a puppet either. Robin is the strong, silent type and very understated, but he strikes me as very strong mentally, as well as very talented.
(would be nice to read someone who thinks the same as i, for a change...).
