Bracknell Ice Skating Club Newsletter - January 2004
Synchro Skating Team Champions Again
Bracknell Ice Skating Club's Ice Fusion synchronised skating team
has won gold in this year's British Mixed-Age Synchronised Skating
Championship. Not only is the club delighted that it has won, but it
is thrilled that it has beaten Lee Valley's Team Eclipse. "It's a
great result and makes the future of synchro at Bracknell look very
bright again," said club chairman, Roy Welham. "We are very proud of
all the skaters." Although the club has consistently been one of the
best in Britain for synchronised skating since the mid 1990s, Ice
Fusion's win is the first since the novice Ice Precise team won gold
for the second time in 1999. And Bracknell Ice Skating Club has
never won a championship when Lee Valley - originally the "home" of
British synchro skating - has had a team in the same section.
Bracknell's junior Ice Metrics team (for skaters aged 12-19) and
novice Ice Precise (aged up to 15) had won medals in each British
Championship in recent years and competed in many internationals
including two Junior World Cups. But the synchro section - in common
with almost every other club in Britain - has been in decline for
the past couple of years partly because most of Bracknell's
established skaters had become too old to compete for Ice Metrics,
which is now in abeyance, and Ice Precise which failed to skate last
year.
In
fact many of the 20 or so teams which were in the championships five
years ago, either no longer exist or are unable to meet the
championship requirements. Even though the National Ice Skating
Association has introduced mixed-age and juvenile sections to try to
encourage more skaters to take part, there was a total of only 18
teams, including four adults, in the championships at Nottingham on
January 18.
To combat the crisis, the Bracknell club set up a synchro
development squad two seasons ago and some of those skaters have now
joined the re-established Ice Precise and the new Ice Fusion which
includes a few Slough-based skaters.
Bracknell's efforts at rebuilding seemed to be on the right track
when Ice Fusion came second, behind Team Eclipse, in a championship
qualifying competition in November, and the reborn Ice Precise came
fourth.
Both Bracknell teams had increased their number of skaters from the
minimum of 12 to 16 since the qualifying event. And both had
improved a lot … as the championship results showed.
"Ice Fusion had its best ever skate. They were brilliant and we are
really, really proud of them," said David Phillips, one of the
Bracknell teams' coaches. "They excelled themselves and not one
skater put a foot wrong. The judges were also extremely pleased with
their performance."
Lee Valley lost marks when one of its skaters fell and took a long
time to regain his place. But Bracknell 's superior programme,
skated to a medley of Queen music, beat Lee Valley on both the
technical and artistic marks, notching up four first places and one
second.
Although Ice Precise, which skated to a Hoe Down medley, had to
content itself with being fourth of the four novice teams, all the
team skated well and managed to lift its marks from 2.4/2.5 at the
qualifier to 3.0/3.1
David added: "A huge thank you must go to everyone involved with the
teams including Simon Jenkins, the Slough coach who helped coach Ice
Fusion and got them additional ice time at Slough. Now we must look
to the future and the further rebuilding of our teams."
Skating for Ice Fusion were Kasia Bielska, Leanne Burling, Alix
Carter, Gemma Cross, Rebecca Fraser, Laura Hartley, Lucy Heap,
Rachel Heap, Becky Highcock, Laura Hickcock, Sara Holroyd, Charlotte
King, Lucie Pitcher, Alison Ryder, Jo Simms and Lyndsey Steere.
Skating for Ice Precise: Amy Barnes, Charlotte Briddon, Gemma Cross,
Stephanie Francis, Rebecca Fraser, Laura Hartley, Rachel Heap, Becky
Highcock, Laura Highcock, Charlotte King, Katherine Loades-Bannon,
Rebecca Loades-Bannon, Susie Race, Alison Ryder, Hayley Salmon and
Lyndsey Steere. Reserves: Charlotte Brooke, Kirsty Dever and Amy
Morin.
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