Worlds With the Crystallettes

The Crystallettes had a fabulous time at the World Championships in Sweden! When we first arrived there, we got settled into our beautiful hotel, the Gothia Towers. A few hours after arriving, we had our first practice.  After a long plane ride we all felt like noodles but that did not stop us from having a very focused and productive practice. It felt so good to get our feet back on the ice again and get our muscles moving after hours of traveling. We knew that, being at the World Championships, every practice was important and a vital performance. So, we strived to do our best at every practice. We had five practices during the days leading up to competition.  Our practices were all strong and focused. We spent most of our time practicing but did have two hours to go shopping and have the true Sweden experience! The food was great and the city is absolutely beautiful. 

The draw ceremony was held Thursday night and consisted of solo performances, a group performance, a mini-concert by singer Amy Diamond and the most adorable beginner synchro team. After the performances, all of the skaters, competing in the competition, laced up their skates and assembled single file behind their flag on the ice. This was where the captains from each team were called over to draw a chip out of the bag. When it was our turn to draw, co-captain Meghan Quigley and I skated over to determine when we would perform for the short program. We were so nervous! I slowly stuck my hand inside the bag and pulled out number 13! We skate in the middle of the second group performing Friday night.  We were happy with our draw and excited that competition was finally here! The next morning we had an amazing official practice. It definitely gave us a boost of confidence and we could not have been more ready to compete.  We planned to go out on the ice and give it our all. We had come way too far to hold anything back and had overcome so many different obstacles.

We competed thirteenth in the short program. We skated the best short program performance of our season and were proud of how we performed out on the world ice. We ended up in 11^th place with places 9^th through 11^th separated by less then a point. Once we were done skating, we got the opportunity to watch the top six teams in the world skate. 

After standing in 11^th place after the short program, the Crystallettes got the opportunity to watch some of the top teams in the world. They were beautiful and amazing to watch! There was so much energy in the arena when they skated. That was our goal tomorrow when we performed our sassy long program – get the crowd clapping. We had the crowd going with us in short and we were eager to perform our upbeat long program. We were sure that our music and program would excite the audience, especially with our two new ending pieces. After a solid and confident official practice, we rested up, and got ready to compete. We performed a very intense and energetic free skate that definitely had the crowd clapping along. This long program was by far my favorite free skate that I have ever performed. Overall, it was a great skate, we had one minor mistake but it didn’t matter because we were so incredibly proud of our season as a whole. We ended up finishing in 11^th place (just over a point away from 10^th) and we were happy with how we skated for both programs and couldn’t have asked for anything more. We are 11^th in the world and second in our nation, not too shabby! 

After the competition ended and the awards ceremony was over, we returned back to the hotel and got ready for the competitors party. With help from a few stylish parents, we purchased the most adorable outfits for the competitor’s party.  After we got all dolled up and took thousands of pictures in our cute outfits, we walked down to the party. We had a nice dinner and got the chance to interact with all of the teams that participated in the competition. Then a DJ came to the party and it turned into a nightclub, everyone was dancing and having a great time with each other. We got to take pictures with many of the teams and it was a very memorable experience.

The Crystallettes had a great time at the 2012 World Championships! It was an experience that will be cherished forever. We wanted to congratulate all of the teams in the competition, especially  the Haydenettes for their bronze medal. It was nice to represent USA together and we hope to have the opportunity again next year in Boston!