I say if this is Alina taking it easy the competition is probably begging for them to never let her kick it into gear.
People's fantasy worlds are worthy of a JK Rowling book "Crazy Paranoic Beasts and where to find them". Only I don't want to find them, I wish they got no attention at all.
By her own admittance some of it all eventually got to Zhenya, and she was super strong and tough, I can only hope it doesn't get to Alina and she just shrugs it off. I think maybe she will, either ignore it or shrug it off, she seems more impatient with repeated questions and attempts at intrigue. Maybe her teenage eye roll years will help her deflect her attention from that.
It is getting old, fast, but as long as it gets media attention and coverage it won't die down. Crazy speculative things are written about anyone that matters, doom and gloom pieces are written about anyone on top, intrigue is written about any person that has success. The bad part of standing out is that you then become a target to be hit on the head by anyone wanting attention that would get none otherwise.
Alina has to focus on doing her thing and avoiding getting caught up in the middle of all this, so far she is managing it better, I see her impatience with incendiary questions as a good sign, she should do her thing and never look back (or look to the side) and she seems to be doing just that.
Recently she is downplaying expectations on her: "that 3-3-3-3-3 from Olympic practice was a one off thing", "I can only do 3-3-3 eventually", "I don't care about when I leave for a trip", "I don't know if I'll ever do a quad", some of these statements might be the god honest truth but still I get a feeling she is deflecting and lowering expectations.
She moved from a long time with no expectations, she was never on anyone's radar (talking about media, other skaters in the national team), until she entered her first and only Junior Season where she jumped up to be on everyone's radar. She always had fans, but big media attention nope. The weight of expectations was heavy for her, I have a feeling she likes to be cherished but she doesn't like to be demanded to succeed. So, she is finding a way to deal with all that, and her way is to toss cold water on the fire.
Good for her that she is finding, and experimenting, with ways to deal with this, a lot of the attention she gets, most of it really, is positive and can lead to great opportunities for her further down the line. When it's that type of attention, great, when it is the other type of attention she should just try to tune it out.
:dev2:
