Then, I settled in with Olympic skating.
spoilers - - - - -
I was proud of Emily Hughes and her skate and final placement. If she sticks with it, she can certainly work her way up into the top bracket of skaters. She has the potential to do well.
The Canadian skater was my favorite of the evening (apart from the Japanese champion, of course). I thought the Canadian (sorry, I can't remember her name) was lyrical, smooth, and steady on the ice. If she hadn't had a poor short program, I would not have been surprised to see her on the podium.
I think Kimmie Meisner's program was a tiny bit undervalued. I think I might have placed her ahead of Fumie in the final results. Fumie had the jumps but was gawky and not very pleasing to watch.
As the judges said, I admired Sasha fighting, fighting, fighting back from the bad opening jumps. And it was lucky that the second half of her program was flawless in the jumps since that's where the bonus points acrue. Unluckily for Slutskya, doubling the combination and falling on the triple loop in the second half robbed her of two opportunities for bonuses that surely would have lifted her to silver.
She did the exact same thing four years ago. She skated last, and the gold medal was within her grasp with Kwan falling on her triple loop, and she just didn't deliver in the long program then, and she failed again this time to take advantage of others' lost opportunities.
I have to say, Irina seems like a nice person and a brave individual to continue fighting through all the adversities she's been facing in her life, but I find her skating abrupt, jerky, and unengaging. I was delighted she wasn't awarded a gold medal on her reputation alone.
