`Yes, early in the season it felt like Irina was a sure winner, but her loss to a junior skater in GPF was reputationwise not good at all. In my opinion for the Olympics she was not such a sure winner, only a possibility. And as possibilities were Arakawa and Cohen also. As we remember these three ladies were very close after the Olympic short programme. Unfortunately Sasha was nervous in the freeskate. Shizuka was very strong and by her skate she caused that Irina had to skate well to be able to win. That put a lot pressure on Irina, and we saw the result of that...
I agree with Jaana's assessment. When Irina lost to Mao, it showed that she was off her game. She had her set of triple-double combinations, but when faced with an opponent who went for triple-triples, she was in no shape to up her game. That should have tipped people off to the fact that if either Sasha or Arakawa were able to intimidate Irina with triple-triples, she wouldn't have been able to kick her skating up a notch to match them.
It's true that Irina probably botched her program when she realized that Shizuka would be too hard to beat. However, even if Irina turned in a great performance like she did early on in the GP competitions, Shizuka would have still beat her with triples.
So, Irina's best potential finish at this Olympics would have been silver.