Always a Bridemaid...

[mzheng]

Unfortunately, we'll probably never see Sarah's personal best. ...., and won't see how she would deal with being the overwhelming favorite.

Except this I agree with every thing in your post.

I think we had seen Sarah's personal best, which was her SLC LP.

And we did see how she deal with being the overwhelming favorite going into 03 Nats and Worlds. Although she might not be viewed as a fav by ABC broadcast team, she was certainly by the rest of the world.

 

[patsue47]

Well, I'd like to stand corrected but to some extent I still feel as if
we have not seen her "personal best". We saw a flawed program, technically speaking, that happened to win when the overwhelming favorites slipped on that darn slippery ice. Sarah
skated a program that in "normal" circumstances would have garnered her a bronze (maybe) or even 4th position. It was a typical Sarah skate, imo.

At Nats and Worlds I didn't feel she was the overwhelming favorite. I didn't EXPECT her to win based on the SLC Olys, however, I did expect her to skate a little more competively than she did. Her excuses for not doing so didn't cut any ice (no pun intended) with me. I think some skating aficianadoes could agree me on this. But, really, this whole topic has been discussed ad nausem, since 2002 so I'll get off the platform now.

 

[SkateFan4Life]

There are plenty of talented American singles skaters who had the misfortune of competing for the US. They were small fish in a large pond.

Wendy Burge, Carrie Rugh, Tonia Kwiatkowski, Christine Haigler, Tina Noyes, Lisa Marie Allen, Jeri Campbell, Jenny Kirk, Angela Nikodinov are just a small segment of the US talent pool that also included Dorothy Hamill, Kristi Yamaguchi, Jill Trenary, Tonya Harding, Nancy Kerrigan, Peggy Fleming, Linda Fratianne, and Michelle Kwan.

Lisa-Marie Allen was a three-time US silver medalist behind Linda Fratianne. She may have wondered, "Just what do I have to do to win the National title?"

As for the men - Paul Wylie was the ultimate "bridesmaid", with second and third place finishes at Nationals. He never could put together a winning competition to claim the title.

It has to be frustrating at times for these skaters who go out there and skate their hearts out and still fail to medal or win the competition.

 

[lavender]

OK, I am going to go out on a limb here (and duck the rotton tomatoes thrown at me). If Sarah had won any other Olympics except the last one, she would have been America's Sweetheart (ala Dorothy Hammil - she's got that kind of personality). However, her win was overshadowed by Michelle Kwan's loss - kind of like every winner in the last few years' golf major tournaments have been overshadowed by Tiger Wood's losses.

Sarah still wouldn’t have been a sweetheart in the skating world because of her flawed skating. It’s the skating that eventually brings people to you but she doesn’t have “it”. Nice girl but there’s nothing about Sarah’s skating that I would want to emulate (gold or not). It would have been nice to see if she could improve after the Olympics.