If there were Winter Olympics in 1996, 2000...

[figurefan0726]

Who would've won gold medals in figure skating if after Alberville-92 Olympics next Games would've been in 1996, 2000, 2004 and so on? Probably it was discussed before but I can't find it

My guesses:
Men
1996 - Elvis Stojko
2000 - Alexei Yagudin
2004 - Evgeni Pluschenko
2008 - ??? (men's field was exceptionally even)
2012 - Patrick Chan
2016 - Yuzuru Hanyu

Ladies:
1996 - Michelle Kwan
2000 - Michelle Kwan
2004 - Sasha Cohen
2008 - Mao Asada
2012 - Yuna Kim
2016 - Evgenia Medvedeva

Pairs:
1996 - Wotzel/Steuer
2000 - Xue/Hongbo
2004 - Totmianina/Marinin
2008 - Savchenko/Szolkowy
2012 - Volosozhar/Trankov
2016 - Duhamel/Redford

Ice Dance:
1996 - Grishuk/Platov
2000 - Anisina/Peizerat
2004 - Navka/Kostomarov
2008 - ???
2012 - Virtue/Moir
2016 - Papadakis/Cizeron

Men’s 2008 - Stephane Lambiel

 

[lesnar001]

Michelle Kwan - Gold Medal 1996 Olympics.

 

[Ares]

Coulda, shoulda, woulda ... it's moot, some skaters would stay longer if Winter Olympics were in different years - like Baiul for example. Baiul would be formidable opponent for Kwan in 1996 for example, I can bet she would be better skater by then, I mean Oksana was in good form in 1996 Pro competitions.

 

[drivingmissdaisy]

Coulda, shoulda, woulda ... it's moot, some skaters would stay longer if Winter Olympics were in different years - like Baiul for example. Baiul would be formidable opponent for Kwan in 1996 for example, I can bet she would be better skater by then, I mean Oksana was in good form in 1996 Pro competitions.

You're right, it's impossible to say (but fun to speculate). Oksana was derailed by injuries, one of which happened at the 1994 Olympic practice session. Oksana had her lutz for a few years after 1994, but it's unclear if she'd be able to do a 6 or 7 triple LP. It would have been nice to see if Harding would have gotten her 3A back, or if Sato could increase her triple count in the LP.

 

[narcissa]

Come on! Javi!

Eh, this is where the mere fact that it's an Olympic year could likely change things. In 2016, Yuzu skated with injuries the entire year and didn't miss a competition (except 4CC), leading him to be in pretty bad form by Worlds.

In 2018, Yuzu also had injuries that year, starting out with one at NHK, and he (very smartly) decided to pull out of the rest of the events, including the team event, to focus on the individual. If he had skated at NHK or any other competition in between, it would have likely turned out very bad. If it was 2016, Yuzu likely would have skated anyway (as Brian said, Yuzu was skating like he needed to win everything).

Of course you could argue that he learned from 2016 so one had to happen after the other, but IMO it's far from a guarantee that 2016 would have turned out the way it did if it was an Olympic year. But we can only speculate.