SynchroNice / Fourth Edition / 2019

For most countries this luxury is unimaginable, a national competition to decide who is best and who gets a ticket to Worlds. Sure, sometimes there’s a competition, but then the winner is al­ ready known from the start. Not in Finland though. Here they have many very talented teams and it’s a real battle to decide who’s going to win. The system works like this: there are 2 qualifiers and there’s a National Championship. Finland is always allowed to send 2 representatives to Worlds. The first spot is reserved for the winner of the National Championship which is held in March every year, the second spot is for the team that scores the season’s highest points in any Official ISU competition or in one of the Qualifiers or even in the National Championship. So, this battle can go on for months in a row. Scrape a little here, add a little there, fix a lift or an Intersection and add some more facial expression here or there. The teams keep pushing and trying to get better throughout the season, that’s why they always are so well prepared at Worlds… they’re sharp, sharp as knives and give a 110% at the most important competition of the year. SynchroPhoto was invited to come on over to witness part of this “Finnish Way”. The second Qualifier was held in Tampere, the 3rd biggest city in Finland. Our friends O.P. & Jaana picked me up at the airport and while driving up north, I got some Finnish lessons of course. Did you for instance know that there’s a Sauna for every 1.5 inhabitant of Finland? Imagine over 3 million Saunas - there’s always one close by. Then all of a sudden in the middle of the day, it got dark. The sun sets already at 15:15 at this time of year, O.P laughed. So, I won’t be seeing much of Tampere today I thought to myself and then it even started to snow. Finland all the way. To us, and for that matter to most Synchro Skating fans I really do believe, Finland is sort of the Mecca for Synchronized Skating, so it felt sort of special to be in the middle of this mecca, and actually see­ ing nothing but Synchro teams and their parents, relatives and other Synchro fans on the streets, all of course dressed up and in their own teams’ colors. Where ever you sat down to eat or drink in Tampere, it was Synchro all over the place. SYNCHRO NICE 27