- Joined
- Aug 7, 2003
Well I think it depends on what group of people you are basing this all on. While I agree that the casual American fan will tend to root for Americans, I don't think that's true for us die-hards. Most Americans only watch skating at the Olympics...they don't know one skater from the other, so they just say...I'll root for her, she's American. Most Americans knew Nancy but had no clue who Oksana was until the Olympics...they are going to go with who they know.My impression has always been that the US audiences/fans will root for a US skater before a foreign skater. If some rooted for Oksana over Nancy, it had to do more with the tragedies in Oksana's young life than her ethnic origin (Ukrainian).
I don't think this is so much true for the true fan. I am from the US, and while my favorite skater is American (kwan), her nationality is not why I like her. Fumie is one of my other favorites, along with Shen/Zhao. While my list of favorites includes more Americans than not, a lot of it has to do with exposure. Face it, it the US we get very little coverage as compared to Europe and probably Asia as well. And of the coverage we do get much of it is US centric (to appeal to the casual fan). So we see lots of US skaters, and not much from other countries. So we get the chance to watch the US skaters throughout thier careers and don't get the others till they "become famous." Naturally this will make our lists US-centric. Another factor is style. Being from the US most of us will inherently gravitate towards a western style of skating, and mostly we will find that in skaters from the US, can, etc... one isn't better than the other, its simply cultural preference.
Just my 2-cents