I wish I could have seen her in the flesh when she was still skating. I saw her for the first time on TV when she already had her shorter haircut, which I think looks better on her. As I didn't get into figure skating until 1998 or so, I didn't even know she existed before that time, and I knew nothing about what she had already accomplished. But 1998-1999 happened to be when she was at her very best, so I thought she had always been skating like that, which wasn't true. She was a late-bloomer.
I guess it is safe to say that Maria was the skater who first attracted me to figure skating. There was something about the way she moved across the ice that forced me to keep watching, even if she didn't always make her jumps. Actually, clean programs rarely occurred in the late 90s so it was normal to see even the best skaters fall or step out of their jumps. I didn't make much of it.
For the longest time I believed she was very tall because her legs are so skinny it looks as if they are very long. It wasn't until another skinny-legged skater called Medvedeva came unto the scene that I read something about Maria being quite small but she appeared to be much taller than she actually is.
Maria is indeed a very beautiful woman. She was able to highlight all her feminine features on the ice like no one else could. I remember all the commentators saying that she was the only skater who looked and skated like a woman and not like a teenage girl.
)
But always beautiful.
