I've been following figure skating since 1996, so I've definitely seen this story play out before. It seems that in the Olympics ladies' event, the trend is almost always that the fresh young thing with technical brilliance beats the more seasoned favorite from previous years. The last time the older, mature competitor won (Arakawa) was a total surprise. All things being equal, and everyone performing to their abilities, Olys judges seem to prefer the young challenger. Last season, I thought it would happen by GPF and was obvious to me as soon as Euros results came out. The judges were willing to judge both Zag and Med on equal footing when both skated clean, and with Zag's tech it was clear who would win.
This is why the commentary at the Olympics was especially annoying to me, with sports commentators inexperienced with figure skating scoring saying after Med's skate (but before scores were posted) that they thought she should win, simply because she was clean and emotional. The BBC commentators were especially egregious :dev2:. Anyone who is used to seeing figure skating scoring would've known that Alina's very high FS score+Med's lower tech content+lead in the SP+general scoring trend during the season made Alina's total score essentially unsurmountable. It's this kind of misleading and misinformed commentary that blows a controversy out of proportion. There is a huge difference to how an audience reacts when they hear a commentator say: "Well, she did amazingly but it may not be enough because her competitor has a significant advantage." vs. "She did amazingly and that has to win. She's definitely done it."

:sarcasm: