- Joined
- Nov 12, 2009
Your opinion is obviously colored by dislike. Obviously Sasha's age is against her but there are too many older athletes excelling these days to be so pessimistic.
I don't think Nationals was a full gauge of what she can do. She didn't allow any margin of error in scheduling her return to training, and unfortunately injuries ate up some of that precious time. Her practice and SP showed that she was in very competitive shape with the ability to do high-scoring programs. Hopefully she learned that she needs to allow more time in case something goes wrong.
Personally, I'd love to see her give it one more season since she got so close to a full comeback. It would be nice to leave on a higher note. But there is a lot of sacrifice involved. (Like breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And a life.) And she can see that Mirai (to say nothing of Mao and Yu Na) is not going to hand her any easy victory. It's a tough call because she's made it clear that in spite of all the difficulties she loves the thrill of training and competing. I hope she reaches the decision that's right for her.
Sasha never could do much technically though, never had a good 3-3, could never get much height in her jumps, most of the time didn't do 3 jump combinations, never delivered a clean LP etc. It's like when people say if Alissa landed her jumps she'd be unbeatable; that's not actually true. If Alissa landed her jumps and had a more difficult jump layout with 3-3s, bigger and stronger jumps, and more speed, then yes, she would be tough to beat. But Alissa with the current jumps she can do, even if she did go clean, would not be anywhere close to catching Yuna. Sasha is the same way. When she was competing, she could do well because most ladies weren't doing 3-3s. Sasha's spins and PCS can compensate a bit, but where she has always been pretty lacking on the technical side of things, I don't think she can really be competitive with the top at this point. Yuna is just as artistic as her, but has better speed, more difficult programs, and gets huge GOE.