Time flies
when you’re having fun! Au revoir France!
Our trip to
France blew by and I can’t believe we’re already home. After the first three
days of sightseeing and practice it was finally competition time on Friday and
Saturday. Friday was the short program. We arrived at the rink early and were
able to get pumped to skate by playing our animal game and dancing around. When
it was time to compete we entered the arena in our shimmering lavender dresses
and I could see all the American flags waving in the stands. Although this is
my fifth international event, it always seems surreal to see the USA section
cheering as we take the ice. Our short program felt good. We had a minor fall,
but otherwise a clean skate that we were happy with. The 46.66 we received was
not as high as we had hoped and showed room for improvement in both our
technical and program components scores. Only 4 points separated our current
7th place position with 3rd place. With such a small gap, we knew the
competition was not over yet and were ready to make a come back in the long
program. To end the day we headed to “Pizza Pai” for some delicious sundaes,
continuing our team tradition of having ice cream the night before the free
skate. We all headed to bed excited to bring it for the next day!
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| At Pizza Pai |
Saturday
night we put on our game faces. Knowing we had nothing to lose, we focused on
taking each element one at a time, putting our best performance out there and
enjoying the skate. We had a blast and a few of my teammates joked that they
made facial expressions they had never made before in our program! I would
definitely say we brought it that night and had a lot of fun performing! Our
score was high enough to pull us up three spots to fourth place overall, which
made us incredibly proud.
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| Performing our free skate |
After the
junior competition we stuck around the rink to watch senior. We signed some
autographs and traded pins with other teams. It was exciting to have a little
slice of fame. I ended up handing out all of my American flag toothpicks to a
local Novice team from France. We also met a lot of girls from Great Britain.
Saying that the senior free skate event was amazing would be an understatement.
The programs were stunning and when I thought no team could be better than the
last, I would see even better skating. We enjoyed cheering on Team USA, the
Haydenettes and Ice’Kateers, who both skated great! The arena was packed. Even
the stairs were filled! During intermissions the entire crowd danced and I
could see all the different countries’ flags waving. It was like watching the
entire world come together, an unforgettable and unique experience. Anyone who
bought tickets for senior World Synchronized Skating Championships in Boston is definitely in for a treat!
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| The crowd for the Senior free skate |
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| Skyliners with Team Great Britain |
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| Team France |
Now that
we’re back in the States, we are ready to work extremely hard in these last few
weeks leading up to U.S. Synchro Championships and World Junior Championships! You’ll know where to find us: At the
rink!
Good luck to
Skyliners Senior, Chicago Jazz, and Lexettes at Spring Cup this week!
Au revoir!
Dana
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