I know many girls who wanted to conquer the world at 14, wanted to fly jets, cure diseases, move to Africa and help people, learn at least a dozen languages, try to revolutionise the Catholic Church, lead Greenpeace, open an art gallery in Paris...
And these girls are dreaming of going to the Olympics and maybe winning a gold medal, while working their asses off to get there. They are two very lucky girls to be so close to actually living their dreams. I find that very exciting and very interesting sort of life.
How is winning an Olympic medal less ambitious/interesting than flying jets, curing diseases, moving to Africa & helping people, learning a dozen languages, etc.? There are more women achieving these other goals than winning an Olympic medal. Just think how many women become pilots, doctors, charity workers, or language experts in a year, never mind in four years?!
Anyway, the point is that these other goals are certainly no more lofty or ambitious than what these two girls are trying to achieve.
Or are you objecting to the fact that they only have one such lofty/ambitious goal, and not multiple ones that they're dreaming of and working toward simultaneously??
Btw, I didn't mean to imply that you were insulting Jeff Buttle's skating. I think there's absolutely nothing wrong with feminine skating -- my favorite male skater, Johnny, probably skates more like a girl than anyone else. My point is that some of us love figure skating (or artistic skating in some other languages) largely because of the more artistic aspect, not the athletic one. Men can skate faster, jump higher, but I just don't find them all that exciting: they are sloppy in their positions in the air and on the ice, they don't usually try to interpret very soulful, maybe even melodramatic music, some of the best male technicians (and who score highly) haunch their shoulders and don't stretch their knees or point their toes. All those little details really bother me, for me it detracts from the artistic presentation.
Figure skating is a funny sport, it tries to be artistic and athletic at the same time, so invariably there is tension between the two at times, and fans can easily differ in opinion on what they care more about. In particular, there's this sense that male skaters should try to be more of an athlete than an artist, because balletic skating is not real athleticism or something. In Ballet, there's not this much tension, and there, male dancers have less scruples about dancing "like a girl", if what that implies is being musical and artistic, pointing their toes, fluttering their hands, being subtle & delicate in their movements. So you see much less an attempt of male dancers to move away from these ideals of beauty in physical movement. In skating, I feel like guys are often actively trying to counter the image that male skaters move like women, hence the greater diversity in musical selection, and range of movements.
It's like what Tolstoy said about happy/unhappy families, something to the tune of: "all happy families are alike (and boring) because they achieve perfection in the same way, but unhappy families each have their unique (and interesting) story because have their own reasons for their unhappiness."
Just a theory. And I'm not even sure that I presented it very clearly.
