My only agreement with Raf has less to do with the age issue and more to do with the sport and the issue of name recognition, casual fans and rivalries. When the Olympics come around a sport needs a story to draw people in and some name recognition and if people only watch a sport during the Olympics then they might only remember Alina and Evgenia. You could certainly spin a great story there for the next Olympics about old rivalries and the whole coaching issues and Evgenia wanting the gold she thought of as hers. It's a good story and people remember the drama. However if Figure Skating was smart they could start building a really good narrative around Aliona, Alexandra and Anna and really build it to the Olympics. The problem is other youngsters come up and pushes them out then you kind of have these no name champions. We might know that they are junior world champions and such but most casual fans do not.
Great rivalries play out over time and build over Olympic cycles. I don't think it is necessarily about age but about time. Is 2 years long enough to build a compelling narrative around a skater? Is one year? Is a season? It would take a very special skater for casual fans to be invested in by just meeting them at the games.. Yulia was like that. I got the feeling a lot of people became invested in her and really wanted her to do well even though they didn't know her. I think Yulia beating Yuna might have been easier for the casual fan than Adelina.
Is this really an issue though? I feel like you make creating the "Olympic narrative" sound much more complicated and difficult than it is.
Just look at PyeongChang through your lens.
If people only watched figure skating during the Olympics, then they might only remember Yuna, Yulia and Adelina. There was no great story to spin about rivalries and drama since all of them were retired. They started building a great narrative about Evgenia, but she got pushed out by up and coming youngster Alina. So you kind of have this "no name" Olympic champion where dedicated fans might know them as junior world champion and such but casual fans do not.
That's a story that's hard to get invested in. /s
Except that's not what happened at all, because the media isn't that incompetent. They're actually quite creative when it comes to making sure a story sells. They spun it into the tale of the rivalry of two training mates. The coronation of the reigning World champion versus the underdog young upstart. The artistic one versus the technical one. And the casual fans embraced it.
Going into Beijing it'll be the same. Even now I can list off a bunch of compelling narratives that I'm sure casual fans wouldn't mind. If Alena, Sasha and Anna make it, then it's the continuation of this ongoing story of training mates who each excel at different areas pushing each other to achieve new levels of brilliance. If only one makes it, it's the old champion trying to claim her Olympic title in the face of new challengers. If none of them make it, perhaps it'll be the story of Kamila and Alysa's rivalry, starting from their junior years and culminating in the highest stakes competition during their senior debut. If it's none of these skaters, then it can be the dramatic tale of an unexpected dark horse emerging just before the games to seize the crown.
I could go on and on. Point being, I really don't think the media's inability to create an interesting narrative for the casual fans is something worth genuinely worrying about.