Think Torvill/Dean, Gorsha/Sur, Boitano, Zayak, as some various examples. Going through each:
Torvill/Dean- speaks for itself. Hardly anyone seemed to agree with their winning only bronze in Lillehammer, and a very distant bronze at that.
Gorsha/Sur- they were ridiculously undermarked as amateurs in their comeback.
Boitano- he wasnt blatantly robbed anywhere, but he wasnt exactly shown the love by the judges either other than at Skate America where he nearly won despite being clearly outskated by Petrenko, but that was being the top American at a U.S invitational. He certainly skated well enough he could have been placed over the little proven and established Scott Davis at Nationals, especialy given how USFSA tends to protect its champions past. At the 94 Olympics he was stingily scored even for the mistakes he made and how he skated, and I doubt would have fared great even skating perfectly.
Zayak- IMO she should have placed higher than 4th at Nationals. A 5.0 for required elements under Nationals scoring standards for her clean and beautiful short program, even with a triple loop combo, was cruel. She should have definitely beaten Bobek's meltdown in the free skate. You could even argue her placing over then immature Kwan managing only 4 of her 7 triples cleanly that night, as Zayak's style had matured so much by then and she did 3 or 4 triples in a pretty clean skate that night.
Kwan- was scored more and more harshly the more time she began taking off in her late years. Judged were seemingly not thrilled at her jumping back into the fray rather than competing regularly.
Witt- I thought she was undermarked to keep finishing below Szewcenko who could do nothing harder than a triple loop herself, and presentation wise paled in comparision to Witt back then. Anyway even if you dont agree as a 2 time Olympic winner some would have figured her to be held up more under 6.0 than say finishing only 8th at Europeans, no matter how she skated.
Gordeeva/Grinkov are the only major exceptions I can think of, but they were younger than the majority of the field still, they were considered by almost all the greatest pair ever by that point, and they have the Russian federation. Miskutienok/Dmitriev and Petrenko too but were both off only 1 year between a 2 year interval Olympics, and were also younger than many of their competitors, so it seemed like nothing as far as a comeback anyway.
The judges do not love "comebacks" IMO and history makes me feel that way. I can already predict confidently that fans will be thinking Shen/Zhou, Cohen, and any other skater who comes back should be scoring higher for their performances than they will. Any of them that wants to succeed will need to clearly trump the efforts of their competitors to best them for a certain position. The one exception might be Plushenko, but again he has the Russian federation on his side. I guess I should define it more clearly that judges do not love "comebacks" of non Russian skaters. |
显身卡
