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trains
04-01-2003, 07:24 AM
The World Synchronized Skating Championships are in Ottawa this coming weekend. Who is good? The Swedish team is already there practising at Minto. There is one man on the team. I heard the Russians have many men on the team. That opens up lots of artistic possibilities. Any predictions?

chattykathy
04-01-2003, 08:48 AM
The Finnish teams are spectacular! The Canadian teams are also very good. These two countries consistently finish at the top but more and more teams are making headway in the sport. The US has made tremendous improvements in the past few years. Oddly enough precision skating now called syncronized skating was invented in the US, in Ann Arbor MI.

This will be an amazing event- be prepared to be amazed at the speed, difficulty and intricacy of the programs.

Wish I could be there!

Mel On Ice
04-01-2003, 10:57 AM
One of my teammates on my synchro team has a daughter on Miami of Ohio's synchro team. Go Redbirds!

aservin
04-01-2003, 02:17 PM
Sweden team 1 "Surprise" will win!!! They have their most difficult program ever and Andrea Dohany (their coach and the best team choreographer in the world) is certain that no team will take them this year. They have worked very hard to get back the title they lost to Finland last year. They did their freeprogram at Europeans in Malmö and I can tell you that it was something special. All of the top skaters (Slutskaya, Pluschenko.....) was looking at them from the rink and at the gala practise the team had to learn the skaters the final number and boy that they had problem. But on the gala it went very good compared to the practises.

IceSkatr64
04-01-2003, 08:57 PM
I haven't seen Team Suprise yet but I was lucky enough to see Marigold Ice Unity (the finnish team) and they were truly amazing. They did this program to The Lion King and, although you may think it's a juvenile type program, it blew me away. The entire arena was dead silent when they were skating. THe things they were doing appeared so effortless. Many of us(me including) had tears in our eyes....it was beautiful! Marigold actually lost a girl to Meningitis early in the season so I heard that this number was acutally a tribute to her memory (she loved Disney movies and both programs...Lion King and Hook are Disney movies). I'm sure that's one aspect which makes it so emotional as well as the beautiful skating.

I heard great things about Team Surprise too so I'm very excited to see them! It looks like it's going to be a real fight from both ends till the end. I was lucky enough to meet and get to know the coach of Marigold and I know that she, and her team, will not let go of this title without a fight. I heard that Les Surpremes were very very good as well and Fusion (the 2nd place team from Canada) did the coolest rock and roll number! THey were so unique! It's going to be a great competition! If everyone skates their best, it'll be very interesting to see what happens.

luna_skater
04-01-2003, 11:13 PM
Team Surprise is unbeatable technically, but have never blown the roof off in the presentation department. If they can, they will win, hands down. Marigold will likely be in the top 2, and I think Les Supremes has the edge for bronze, especially with Lyne in their corner. I have never been a Hayden fan, but I'm willing to convert if their skating proves me wrong! I'm hoping Fusion will wow me in person, because they didn't win me over on the TSN broadcast. I'm anxious to see Russia and Team Unique, and Japan was so beautiful in 2000. It's going to be an amazing weekend!

cygnus
04-02-2003, 09:28 AM
I'll be there live-(I just happen to live here!). I don't know much about synchro. Is there anything in particular I should look for? I'll watch for Sweden. In the dech dept,I assume speed and unison are the most important, but what else?

sulin
04-02-2003, 10:09 AM
I know it's a long shot :roll: but is this going to be televised?

luna_skater
04-02-2003, 10:16 AM
Yes, it will be on TSN on April 20th. I'm off to school at the moment, but can give a run-down of what to look for in a synchro program when I'm home later!

On www.worldsynchro.com (http://www.worldsynchro.com) , we've posted some links about judging synchro. They are on the main page.

luna_skater
04-02-2003, 08:22 PM
Some general things to look for in a freeskate (the links I provided explain Short Programs pretty well, and having only seen one short program w/ the new requirements this year, I don't think I can give you an adequate run-down).

Balance of elements: Does the team use a variety of the five elements (wheel, block, line, circle, intersection) or are one or two elements used predominantly?

Ice coverage: Self-explanatory. How much of the ice is covered, and how quickly do they do it. Do they spend a lot of time at one end?

Transitions: What joins elements together, like in dance. If a transition is really good, it will be so fast and smooth that the next element just appears. Difficulty is added to transitions with arm-holds and footwork.

As of this year, programs should be oriented to all sides of the rink, not just the judges' side.

General things to watch for: straight lines. Perfect shapes (a circle should stay a circle). Direction of rotation (clockwise is considered more difficult than counter). When skaters drop their arms to change hold or formation, is the space and line-up maintained? Good skating quality. Creative movements and transitions.

Two of the biggest mistakes people make when assessing a synchro performance are these: In a freeskate, there is NO mandatory deduction for a fall. When a team has a fall, a judge has to assess the following: did the fall disrupt the performance to a severe degree? Was an element lost? How long did the skater take to get back in line? How well did the team recover? Secondly, the amount of footwork in a program. Just because a program has a ton of footwork does not mean it is great, and just because a program is lacking footwork does not mean it is poor. Difficult quality footwork is ideal, but teams can also add difficulty with turns, transitions, arm-hold, direction changes, speed, etc., and all the other things I've mentioned above. Judges would rather see good quality cross-overs that match in undercut extension and skating posture, than poor footwork just for the sake of adding dificulty. It's like Todd Eldredge and jumps: you get more credit for a solid 3 axel than a missed quad.

luna_skater
04-02-2003, 09:08 PM
And how could I forget, unison and synchronization! :oops: :D

One other thing you will see is something called "moves in isolation" in the freeskate. This is when a few skaters (usually four or five) break from the rest of the group to perform something like a spin or jump (usually---it could also be footwork, edges, etc.). These MII should add to the overall program, not distract from it. MII is also informally called "highlighting", although true highlighting (when the focus is put on one or two skaters instead of the entire group) is illegal. MII should enhance the performance as a whole, and should fit easily with the music and choreography.

Lifts are also new this year. I have only see a few senior teams with lifts so far, so I will be very interested to see how they are incorporated into the programs.

roogu
04-02-2003, 09:29 PM
Fusion is basically last year's Black Ice Senior team. So they do have the world experience. Let's see how they do this year.

luna_skater
04-03-2003, 01:08 AM
Fusion may be made up of the same skaters as last year's black ice, but it is definitely not the same team. I think the highest they'll place is 5th, but I'm predicting something more like 6th-8th.

love2sk8
04-03-2003, 04:09 PM
Team Surprise (Sweden) is AMAZING. Their programs are sooo good. I'm impressed by how well they move together, and how how awesome their patterns look. I predict they will do very very well. It was mesmorizing watching them train!!:D

Annes
04-04-2003, 08:25 PM
I just got back from the sp! here's my untechnic and v. short report:

1. Canada 1 was awesome. They skated to "L-O-V-E" and were v. solid and smooth, were close-together and used many different blocks, etc.. (I'm no expert, remember, it just looked that way). I though they were the most expressive team. However, I though they would have been behind the Fin 1 had that team not made errors.

2. Sweden 1. Just saw the beginning of them. They seemed the most polished, but fell twice, once on footwork...was surprised they finished so high.

3. Finland 1. Fell once on footwork (?? maybe). A v. polished team.

4. Finland 2--beautiful blue costumes, skated to some fast-slow-fast-slow music. I thought the COULD been ahead of Finland 1.

5. America 1. Very nice, classical program--thought it could have been faster (?? I forget, maybe I'm mixing them up with another team...) Nice spirals.

6. Germany. They had bizarre, neat, yellow-brown costumes...a good team, but some of their arm-holds were off and they seemed to make a lot of noise.

7. Canada 2. I think they had a v. slight bobble on footwork...a team that excells at some of the more difficult elements but is sup(topteam)par on others...I really liked their jungle-theme music & presentation.


I probably got a lot wrong!

GEM21
04-04-2003, 08:57 PM
Here is the full final (short) results:

World Synchronized Skating Championships
Synchronized Skating
Online Result FPl. Name Nat. Points SP FS
1 Team Canada 1 CAN 0.5 1
2 Team Sweden 1 SWE 1.0 2
3 Team Finland 1 FIN 1.5 3
4 Team Finland 2 FIN 2.0 4
5 Team United States of America 1 USA 2.5 5
6 Team Germany GER 3.0 6
7 Team Canada 2 CAN 3.5 7
8 Team Russia 1 RUS 4.0 8
9 Team United States of America 2 USA 4.5 9
10 Team Czech Republic CZE 5.0 10
11 Team Italy ITA 5.5 11
12 Team France FRA 6.0 12
13 Team Japan JPN 6.5 13
14 Team Russia 2 RUS 7.0 14
15 Team Sweden 2 SWE 7.5 15
16 Team Switzerland SUI 8.0 16
17 Team Great Britain GBR 8.5 17
18 Team Hungary HUN 9.0 18
19 Team Australia AUS 9.5 19
20 Team Croatia CRO 10.0 20
21 Team Netherlands NED 10.5 21
22 Team South Africa RSA 11.0 22
23 Team Iceland ISL 11.5 23

I am SOOO happy for Les Supremes!! Even if they don't win it all, being 1st after the SP is something to be proud of!! And they're FS is amazing and I know they'll do great!

Skatingsarah
04-04-2003, 09:42 PM
WOOO-HOOO

Way to go Canada and Sweden it must be the minto ice... Wonder why it hasnt worked 4 me yet! ;) Wishing everyone the best time tomorrow watching the long
-Sarah

victorskid
04-05-2003, 10:03 AM
I was sad to see that the secret "interim" judging system is also in place at World Synchros.

Last evening there were 13 judges but the scores of only 9 (secretly selected by the computer before the event began) were counted. Scores were shown in ascending numerical order, were not able to be "paired" for calculation of ordinals, and no ordinals were shown (at least in the arena). Many fans seemed to be puzzled by the results.

Perhaps "Speedy" won't be as warmly welcomed tonight? Perhaps I'll have some "takers" for my No Secret Judging pins?

Thanks to luna_skater for the "primer" on what to watch for :)

cygnus
04-06-2003, 12:09 PM
I was at the finals last night, and there was some really good skating there! I don't have a list of final results, since I didn't have time to write them down, but Team Sweden took 1st place with an Indian (Bombay) themed program, Finland 1 was second,with a Lion King (broadway version, somewhat avant-garde ).( I would have had them 1st, but I know little about synchro). Canada 1 was 3rd,with a great program too.
Highlights for me were the Japanese, with a martial arts program- very innovative- they got a standing ovation, Germany with a Cabaret program, and Croatia with a Robin Hood Program(lots of arrowlike formations on the ice,and lovely costumes). I also liked France, with absolutlely gorgeous blue costumes (a few stumbles,though),and Russia 2, which is half men/half women, which makes for some very interesting moves, I think.

I forgot to mention that the Australians had an utterly charming program to "chopsticks"- it was very entertaining, and the costumes (black and white with piano keys, and musical notes on them) suited it perfectly.

Skatingsarah
04-06-2003, 02:12 PM
Final results for Worlds

1 Team Sweden 1 SWE 2.0 2 1
2 Team Finland 1 FIN 3.5 3 2
3 Team Canada 1 CAN 3.5 1 3
4 Team Finland 2 FIN 6.0 4 4
5 Team United States of America 1 USA 7.5 5 5
6 Team Germany GER 9.0 6 6
7 Team Russia 1 RUS 11.0 8 7
8 Team Canada 2 CAN 11.5 7 8
9 Team United States of America 2 USA 13.5 9 9
10 Team Czech Republic CZE 15.0 10 10
11 Team Italy ITA 16.5 11 11
12 Team Japan JPN 18.5 13 12
13 Team France FRA 19.0 12 13
14 Team Russia 2 RUS 21.0 14 14
15 Team Switzerland SUI 23.0 16 15
16 Team Sweden 2 SWE 23.5 15 16
17 Team Australia AUS 26.5 19 17
18 Team Great Britain GBR 26.5 17 18
19 Team Hungary HUN 28.0 18 19
20 Team Croatia CRO 30.0 20 20
21 Team South Africa RSA 32.0 22 21
22 Team Netherlands NED 32.5 21 22
23 Team Iceland ISL 34.5 23 23

Way 2 Be Canada!! WOOO
-Sarah

ps-thanks for the little review cygnus! It was cool to hear what they skated to and the themes!

luna_skater
04-06-2003, 08:19 PM
Hi, all. Just got back from a crazy weekend at worlds. By tomorrow, I will have reports posted at www.synchroboards.com and www.worldsynchro.com. I'm so happy for Les Supremes!

arena_gal
04-21-2003, 06:00 PM
I saw the televised coverage yesterday (Rod Black is irritating), but it was really good and the programs outstanding. Explanation of the required elements in the short was done very well.

I really liked the moving camera down the side of the rink, once I got used to it, that would be something I'd like to see in singles skating. It really gave the perspective on the team moving as one.

I was surprised that there weren't as many singles elements like jumps as I had expected, some teams used them and others didn't.

Very much liked Team Sweden with the India/Bombay program, the last section of footwork down the ice was spectacular.

IceSkatr64
04-22-2003, 02:33 PM
Does anyone have Worlds on tape? I'd love to see the coverage I live in the US and we didn't get that amazing coverage that Canada did. I was lucky enough to actually go see the teams and it would be great for my family to see this as well. I would love to see this again. Could someone either post here or e mail me about it at IceSk8r164@aol.com. Thanks!

missflick
04-22-2003, 03:39 PM
I loved Debbi Wilkes' commentary of the Swedish team. "Look at the last section of footwork, it's like having 20 Alexei Yagudins out there":lol:
But she was RIGHT!;)

luna_skater
04-26-2003, 12:23 PM
My report of the short programs is up at www.worldsynchro.com (http://www.worldsynchro.com).