Oh, no, I'm with you, both on the only casually watching skating and having Lots of Feelings!
What it comes down to is: yes yes, jumps and elements are all very well and good, but there needs to be something tying them together, an emotion, a storyline. Having watched the long programs in question, I think that Yevgenia skated a better program in part because she was telling a story, not just 'here is a bunch of elements on ice,' which is all Alina gave us. Alina may have skated in time to the music, but all she had was a min/maxed set of elements. Yevgenia gave us more.
I liked Kaetlyn (? - the Canadian skater who got bronze), because she also sold her story of the Black Swan. And surprisingly to me, I liked Bradie's free skate: yeah, Cinderella is utterly predictable, but it was still better than Generic Feminine, which seemed to be all too many of the other skaters had to offer.
I feel like...I saw something on Tumblr the other day, about how dance (and its associated disciplines, e.g. gymnastics and figure skating) tends to have that not-particular-sub text of 'dance through the pain!,' not caring what you do to yourself in the meantime. Ironically, I feel like the men's side of things has a slight edge here, in the sense that because they're being more explicit with the athletic, pursuit-of-a-quad thing, they're also being better about 'do not try this on a sprained ankle' thing. But I also don't have research to back that up, just vague impressions and NBC talking about Yuzuru Hanyu's coach not letting him on the ice until two weeks before the Olympics to try jumping again because he'd hurt himself.
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What it comes down to is: yes yes, jumps and elements are all very well and good, but there needs to be something tying them together, an emotion, a storyline. Having watched the long programs in question, I think that Yevgenia skated a better program in part because she was telling a story, not just 'here is a bunch of elements on ice,' which is all Alina gave us. Alina may have skated in time to the music, but all she had was a min/maxed set of elements. Yevgenia gave us more.
I liked Kaetlyn (? - the Canadian skater who got bronze), because she also sold her story of the Black Swan. And surprisingly to me, I liked Bradie's free skate: yeah, Cinderella is utterly predictable, but it was still better than Generic Feminine, which seemed to be all too many of the other skaters had to offer.
I feel like...I saw something on Tumblr the other day, about how dance (and its associated disciplines, e.g. gymnastics and figure skating) tends to have that not-particular-sub text of 'dance through the pain!,' not caring what you do to yourself in the meantime. Ironically, I feel like the men's side of things has a slight edge here, in the sense that because they're being more explicit with the athletic, pursuit-of-a-quad thing, they're also being better about 'do not try this on a sprained ankle' thing. But I also don't have research to back that up, just vague impressions and NBC talking about Yuzuru Hanyu's coach not letting him on the ice until two weeks before the Olympics to try jumping again because he'd hurt himself.