- Joined
- Mar 23, 2014
The thing is that some of the skaters are continuing to grow the sport even after they leave. Yulia left competition at a young age but has already begun to inspire the next generation of skaters. She’s hardly left the sport. The link below features a skater who may not have even been born when Yulia went to the Olympics and yet you can see her inspiring kids like this all over with her new academy. Imagine learning from Yulia and then going home and looking up her amazing 2013-14 performances. That has got to inspire young kids.
https://instagram.com/p/BjMtMZQjqaW/
I think people like Yulia can use their notoriety they gain at a young age to grow the sport and themselves at the same time. Serafima still competes and the rumors seem to suggest she wants to represent France although she always seems to be in Italy so maybe we’ll see her in the Olympics one day too.
Sorry, my comment about the discussion of the looks of young ladies didn't really have anything to do with their ages or careers. I was responding specifically to gkelly's suggestion that "days of marketing figure skating as a sport full of beautiful young women for men to ogle should be long past" when I have specifically seen a lot of commentary on the beautiful looks of young Russian girls.
I then devolved into OT wondering about whether the popularity of the ladies discipline in Russia now means that figure skating is more or less popular than it was decades ago when there were pairs icons instead of ladies. I'm really just curious.