The Senior team Ice on Fire presented its new program "The tale of the red thread". (Credits: Team Ice on Fire - 2020)

Last weekend, 11 synchro teams competed in the first-ever Italian online competition.

On December 20th, the first Italian synchronized skating online competition took place.

This event was organized to replace the first national competition that should have taken place on November 29th in Aosta but was cancelled due to Covid-19 pandemic. The teams had to send their programs until December 17th, and then, on Sunday the technical panel and the judges assigned the points. 

The competition was a success even if only a few teams were able to participate. The Covid-19 situation in Italy is still very dramatic, and the lucky enough teams to be ready for this competition had to overcome many difficulties. For some time there were restrictions on skating in groups and it often happened that some skaters weren't able to train because of quarantine.

"Some of our athletes had to stay in preventive quarantine mainly for Covid-19 cases in their schools, so the number of skaters that could train was reduced" said team Ice Sparkles from Aosta.


"Getting ready for competitions wasn't easy this year, after the season started we were forced to stop training and stayed in quarantine for three weeks because some of us were positive to Covid-19" explained Team Ice on Fire from Trento.

For all these reasons, many teams decided to reuse their program from last season and upgrade them; another motive was also that last year many of them hadn't had the possibility to fully show their program at their best.

In this division, five teams were competing. Team Hot Shivers skated on the soundtrack of the film "Tangled" and won the gold with 40.18 points. Team Shining Blades earned a total of 35.92 points and ranked second, while Team Ladybirds took the bronze medal with 28.94 points. Team Ice Sparkles, who skated on "Steps from the highlands" by Erich Kunzel, ranked fourth with 24.29 points. And last but not least, Team Ice Breakers collected a total of 17.79 points.

The team Hot Shivers took the lead with 65.73 points; they skated to "Mary Poppins Returns" soundtrack. The team Ladybirds ranked second with 43.17 points.

In the Senior division only Team Ice on Fire competed and showed two new programs. "Our Short Program is a mash-up of two songs: "Elizabeth" by Ashram and "Strength of a thousand men" from "Two steps from Hell" soundtrack. The title is "A woman can do everything" and tells the story of a group of Russian female aviators. Our free program is more romantic, we skate to "La terre vue du ciel" by Armand Amar and we tell the tale of the red tread".

Despite a fall in the free program, the team managed to skate two clean and smooth programs and earned a total of 137.87 points.

Only three teams competed in the NON-ISU divisions.

In the Juvenile division, Team Ice Sparkles skated to the song "Try everything" from the Disney movie Zootopia and earned a total of 20.54 points.

The team Shining Blades competed in the Mixed Age category and earned 40.63 points; they skated a romantic and dramatic themed program to the song "Dance for me Wallis" by Abel Korzeniowski.

For the Junior non-ISU division, Team Ice on Fire skated to the theme "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and collected a total of 34.20 points 

Despite all the difficulties, Italian teams were enthusiastic about competing again after a long time.

"We faced this competition with determination and a lot of motivation in order to get involved in another challenge completely different from what we are used to" said Team Hot Shivers. 

"We would have never thought to compete in an online event, but our commitment and passion allowed us to overcome this challenge and found the team spirit and support that characterised us" explained Team Ice Sparkles.