Like twenty other Australian teams, Majestic Ice Advanced Novice competed in Jamisontown. / Credits: Steve Aird

The Australian competitive season kicked off over the weekend with Sydney Synch Festival - the only major interstate competition outside of the National Championships. The competition is of great value to teams, not only because it is another performance opportunity, but also because it ends with short one-on-one feedback sessions between each team and the Tech Panel, then the Judges.

It was a very interesting competition with the new rules, and the new GOE scale put into action. The execution of the new level 2 pivot block was also interesting to monitor, with only three teams in the competition getting above a level 1 block called.

Basic Novice had four teams competing, all from New South Wales. Majestic Ice finished in front with an almost four point lead over second place team, Southern Sky Hills. Their sister team, Southern Sky Erina was less than a point behind them, and took out the Bronze medal.

The scores in Advanced Novice were all very tight, with less than a point separating the three teams competing. In the end, the gold went to Adelaide Ice Magic, with Southern Sky in second and defending National Champions, Majestic Ice, in third place.

The largest division at the competition is Mixed Age, with eight teams competing this year. It was a tight race between first and second with just 0.88 between gold and silver. Majestic Ice claimed victory, with Eclipse from Victoria in second place. It was also tight between third and fourth place with a difference of only 0.06 between bronze medal winners, Infusion (Western Australia), and Adelaide Ice Magic who skated last and had to wait a very long time for the results, as there was much animated discussion on the Tech Panel. In the end, Adelaide copped a 1.5 point deduction for a non-permitted element, which landed them just off the podium.

The Junior Division had three teams competing. Senior was also very exciting, and even though there were only two teams competing.

Everyone is certainly looking forward to our National Championships on the 1st & 2nd of December to see what happens next! There will be over thirty teams participating at Nationals, with more entrants from particularly Queensland and Western Australia who didn’t make it over to Sydney for Synchrofest this year. Stay tuned…