I don't think she changed the sport at all. Surya's acrobat-on-ice skating style was not appreciated by the powers that be at all, imo, and the judges were not interested in rewarding her for more than the basic scores for the completed jumps. I did not see a change in this attitude at any time during her amateur skating career so don't see how she could be said to have changed the sport.
Not that you asked but, personally, I thought Surya was very entertaining and could do amazing leaps from a standing start. However, I didn't really think of her performances as anywhere close to being what I look for from my favourite figure skaters. Yes I want to see technical difficulty but I also want to see beautiful glide and flow. I want to feel that I am being transported somewhere special to the point that the technical elements are fully integrated and I almost don't notice them happening. To me that is the essence of what makes figure skating unique and special among sports. Count me as one who would rather watch a Patrick Chan stroking around the ice that a Alina Zagitova doing a 5-triple-jump combo if I can't have both the artistry and integrated technical ability.
My first impressions of her were that Surya employed way too many hops into jumps and toe pushes for propulsion and that she skated a lot on the flat of her skate blades rather than the edges, giving her a very awkward look. To be fair Surya worked on those drawbacks and was able to improve a great deal but never managed to eradicate them. As they say about first impressions being the strongest, I was always able to see at least echoes of those issues and couldn't get past them when watching her. Perhaps if I had never witnessed those earlier performances I would have seen more merit in her later efforts and disagreed with the judges.
