SF, thanks for the translations! This must have been difficult for everyone. After the closeness a pair has, and for all those years, it must be like leaving your family for another one. Like everyone else, I'll never forget her incredibly gutsy performance at the Olympics.
I went back and looked at her photos. Definitely she should go on the Beautiful list! I hope she enjoys her university studies and finds a great path forward.
As for the age difference between the new partners, I normally don't feel comfortable with that either, but two of my favorite couples were Klimova and Ponomarenko, the ice dancers, and Kovarikova and Novotny, the Czech pair skaters. There was a six-year difference between Marina and Sergei and a twelve-year difference between Radka and Rene. Sometimes it works out, and I'll hope for it here. Maybe the Chinese pairs are less refined than the Russians, but everyone is less refined than the Russians. They are to pairs skating what the Italians are to opera; they all but invented the discipline, and they are certainly the ones who grafted the ballet tradition to the sport aspect and excelled at both. But the Chinese pairs have such heart. They are, after all, in only their first generation as world-class skaters. And in that time, they've done better than the U.S. has in its entire span of pairs skaters. A pretty good record.
