Free Skate Program in Austria!

What a day! As I write this, I'm sitting with my other Starlights teammates relaxing together after our post-competition dinner. We got to sleep a little extra this morning, with official practice starting at noon. We came off of the ice feeling ready and anxious for the competition. Hair and makeup began as soon as we got back to the hotel. Thankfully, the Lexettes were nice enough to lend us some sewing supplies for our hair!

At our floor practice before heading over to the arena, we worked a lot on expression and performing for both the judges AND each other. After our warm up and floor run through, we were in the locker room! Leading off the freeskate competition was a whole new experience. While there were some shaky pieces of the program, we are really excited to build off of it in the coming month before the U.S. Championships. We ended up with a fifth place finish, and were very happy with this, especially at an international competition!

We were SO proud of our U.S. teammates, with Miami Junior's 6th place finish, the Lexettes taking home the bronze medal in junior, and especially the Haydenettes and their silver medal! It was so much fun to be standing in the stands cheering 'USA!!' as loud as we could. I take a lot of pride in those three letters and representing my country is a HUGE honor!

The Mozart Cup was such a wonderful competition, and it was awesome to compete in its inaugural year. I really hope that teams in the future have the opportunity to attend and have as great an experience as I did!

-B

Short Program in Austria!

When I woke up this morning, I could already feel the excitement building! Today was the day of our short program at the Mozart Cup. After a good breakfast, we headed over to our official practice. It was strong and we were able to accomplish what we had been working especially hard on during prior practices. We left the arena in high spirits, and anxious to come back this evening! After a carbo-load pasta lunch at a nearby Italian restaurant, we headed back to the hotel for a bit of rest before we began getting ready for the competition.

After hair and makeup, we all got together and each wrote down our fears and what we were nervous about for that night on a sheet of paper. Then, all together, we ripped them up and threw them away! It definitely calmed a lot of our jitters, and we began our floor practice with new confidence. We carried this new confidence into the arena, did our floor practice run throughs and warm up, and before we knew it we were in the locker room lacing up our skates!

The skate was so exhilarating! Even from our first step on the ice, we saw all of our U.S. teammates on Haydenettes, Lexettes, and Miami junior cheering in the stands, and we completely fed off of their energy. We skated a strong, clean short program, which we were extremely proud of. There is no better feeling than skating a program that you know you can be proud of, and its definitely a great way to head into both the free skate as well as the U.S. Synchronized Skating Championships. We are extremely proud of our Haydenettes teammates for their second place finish and of our fifth place after the short program.

And now there is the free skate tomorrow! My teammates and I are SO excited to show off this program on the international stage tomorrow evening! At the draw ceremony, we picked lucky number 1, so make sure you tune in to the live broadcast early!

-B

Short Program Day in Austria!

Today the Haydenettes and Lexettes woke up to sunny morning in Salzburg. We ate breakfast and immediately started our hair and make-up for official practice. Once getting to the rink we were able to cheer on the Lexettes at official before we headed to warm-up. Our official practice did not start off so nice, however, we recovered and ended on a strong note!

We headed back to the hotel to watch video, and then were directed to grab lunch at the local supermarket, and rest-up!! Afterwards we started our hair and make-up and our normal traditions and we were off to compete. Taking the ice first in the senior event, we had a very energetic and strong skate, and we all came off the ice very pleased. Our goal is always to improve on our previous skate, and we felt we have done just that!


The Haydenettes then joined the Lexettes and Miami University junior to watch our fellow Team USA members the Starlights. Their short program was also beaming with energy and very crisp!

We drew to skate last in tomorrow night's free skate competition. We are very excited to debut our free skate internationally!!


Goodnight from Austria,
-Jenna and Noelle

Mozart Cup 2011 Haydenettes

Hey its Jenna and Noelle!

We arrived in Munich on Thursday morning and then drove two hours to Salzburg. All of the Haydenettes were excited to be in Austria for the first Mozart Cup! We had our first practice Thursday afternoon at the official arena, where we worked on both the short and long programs. From the ice surface you can see the beautiful mountains topped with fresh snow. It's a gorgeous sight.
After practice we went back to the hotel for dinner. Everyone on the team was amazed at how pretty the sights of the city and countryside of Austria were. We then had a Team USA meeting with the Starlights, Lexettes and several of the USA officials. Off to bed.

Friday
We woke up early for our drive to the unofficial arena an hour and a half away. We watched Nexxice junior for a couple minutes before watching our own Lexettes practice. Then the Haydenettes took the ice for an hour. We had a great practice full of energy for the competition. After our practices we took the bus to the Chapel from the Sound of Music where
the Von Trapp's got married in the movie! The town where the Chapel is located is very cute. All the buildings are different colors and the architecture is stunning. After, we went into downtown Salzburg for some shopping. Throughout the city, there was a large carnival going on where tons of marching bands from all over Europe came to play. They were wearing jester costumes and tons of face paint! We also saw the Croatian and Finnish teams while shopping in some of the popular destinations such as Zara and H&M. After a couple hours shopping we headed back to the hotel for rest and dinner.

Tomorrow is the short program! We are all excited for the competition to start! Good luck to all the teams :-)

Jenna and Noelle

Our First Day in Austria!

Hi, everyone! We’re finally here in Austria! After a relatively smooth flight across the Atlantic, my Starlights senior teammates and I arrived in Salzburg around noon. We grabbed a quick bite to eat, and then were on our way for a walking tour of the city (to take in some of the amazing sights as well as to keep ourselves awake!). The tour was a lot of fun, and the snowy weather made it all the more beautiful! After dinner, we had a team meeting with our team leaders, Bob Bauer and Karin Sherr, U.S. judge Jeannette Davey, the Haydenettes and the Lexettes; now, it's off to bed for us, as we’ll be up bright and early for our unofficial practice tomorrow morning! I’ve included a couple of pictures from our tour today.

-B

Cup of Berlin Update!

Hey, it's Annaleigh again!

On Saturday night, we stepped into our character the minute we began off-ice warm up at the hotel. You could feel the excitement rising in our team. After a short walk to the ice rink, we then practiced our intense facial expressions and ended our off-ice with a loud “USA!” Our long program felt spectacular when we were on the ice. There were, however, a few bobbles here and there and we ended in fourth place. We were disappointed about being so close to third, but the improvement in our component scores made us proud.

The funny thing about this trip was that Chicago Jazz junior and California Gold were so alike! First of all, we both drew third at the draw for short program. Then, we both placed third after short. When the draw for long program came around, both teams skated fifth. And finally, we both ended up in fourth place. I was so baffled by the coincidence of it all!

After six days in Berlin, we are headed back to California. International competitions are always such amazing experiences, and this one is not to be left out! From touring the famous sights to stepping onto the ice for long program, the emotions we felt ranged from feeling very jet lagged to becoming ecstatic after ending our programs.

Love, Annaleigh

Willkommen in Berlin

I am pleased to announce that California Gold and Chicago Jazz junior have made it safely to Berlin! We have already had a few hours on the ice at the practice rink that got us out of our travel daze and into competition mode. Our practice this morning was extremely productive and we had some great run-throughs.

After our practice this morning, we had the opportunity to go out and tour the brilliant city of Berlin. We bought day passes for the "Bahnhoff," Berlin's subway system, and visited major sights such as the Brandenberg Gate, the Berlin Wall and Checkpoint Charlie. After seeing the streets of Berlin, we just had to stop in a chocolate shop called Fassbender & Rausch and have ourselves a nice cup of hot chocolate.

Tonight, we had an amazing time skating our short program. The fun and swanky program is always a blast to get into with our ridiculous surprised and smiley faces! Going into free skate tomorrow, we are sitting in third place and are ready to push ourselves to skate a fast and clean program. GO TEAM USA!