Thank goodness for the 2006 Olympics! All this talk of how girls past puberty are at a disadvantage has always unsettled me, because I hate to think that the best skaters are the ones who are too young to interpret music. And then there was Torino, where the entire podium was over twenty, and the winner, Shizuka, was (if I recall correctly) the oldest of all. Moreover, if Michelle had been healthy, she would have been in the mix and would have done rather well. (In fact, a lot of her best work, though not all of it, was in her late teens and early twenties. "Song of the Black Swan," for example.)
Even so, it can't be denied that girls' bodies change in a way that sometimes slows their progress, or even reverses it, while guys' bodies only get stronger. (No fair!) But I think in this case we're actually talking about two different issues. One is the fact that some jumping-bean skaters do indeed compete better as kids than as older ladies. The other, though, is that there's a transition phase while girls are growing bigger, more solid, curvier, or whatever their body types decree, but that this phase can be worked through. As the center of gravity changes, a skater can practice and learn new techniques to retain or regain the jumps and just soldier on. Then you get gorgeous skating like that of Irina, who was no pixie and was a better jumper than almost anyone else of her contemporaries, or Shizuka, or Michelle. (I won't count Sasha or Mao here because they don't seem to have changed appreciably in body type, though Mao is taller.) Hey, a lot of great enterprises come accompanied by challenges and obstacles! They can still turn out rather well.