SynchroNice / Third Edition / 2018

Nataša Bahat). Since 2016 we have also been cooperating with the brilliant Anne Schelter who comes to hold a camp for 4 teams of 80 Snow- flakes teaching them about technique, and leaving them in awe with her immense knowledge and love and passion for skating… I have never, not in life, nor in skating, been happy with averages. I never used or accepted excuses. Countless times I have told the skaters my life motto: Everything that you do – you do the best you can! Always! You have to set your goals high and have passion and dedication or you won’t achieve anything. If you think something is impossible, you won’t even achieve the possible. If you give 130%, you might achieve 100% but if you only put in 80% effort, you will get maybe 50% results. That means that you only have yourself to blame for the results in a competition. If you don’t want to work – don’t even bother coming to practice. It’s better to stay at home. You have to go to school, skating is op- tional – so enjoy every minute spent on ice... or find another activity. In 1997 we started with 22 skaters and one novice team. Now 20 years later we have 180 skaters and 8 teams! We competed in our first ISU competition just 14 months after founding our club – Spring Cup 1999, and we did well. February 2001, we first organized our own competition “Zagreb Snowflakes Trophy”. Being only 4 years 3 months “old”, we hosted our first World Challenge Cup for Juniors to be followed in April 2004 by our first World Synchronized Skat- ing Championships. That was only 6 years and 4 months after we started! The first ISU ladies of synchronized skating – Marie Lundmark and Monique Georgelin –recognized our passion and gave us their invaluable support. They were crucial to help fan not only the skaters’ love of the sport but also their parents’. It is an inter- esting fact that the exclusively female club (all the skaters and coaches are women and have been for 20 years) were managed by men, for 13 years. With me, as president, there were Davorin Orban (former skater and coach, president of The Golden Spin) as the head of the technical committee, Davor Mahnic and Arnold Cada as club secretaries and also Kresimir Ivankovic and Miralem Delic as crucial members of our organizational team for every ISU competition held in Zagreb. We were all, of course, fathers of active Snowflakes – Orban and Mahnic had two each. Our, in total, eight girls have more than 1000 performances for the club - to be pre- cise: 1086 performances all together. We have good organizational abilities and they were further developed by traveling to ISU compe- titions in Europe and America. We looked at how things were done, remembered what worked and just applied it. That is why we managed to bring the organization of numerous Zagreb Snowflakes Trophies and World Championships and Challenge Cups to near perfection, of course, with help from our teams, associates and many volunteers. One very important factor in this achievement is that we always took care of our teams, we looked at both sides of the coin – the competitors and that of their chaperons (parents, family, friends). Not many have the experience that we do and that makes us sort of a “synchro phenomenon”. I remember one World Championship I attended at 15 as a team leader or Federation representative, I was left so bitterly disappointed that I had to send a protest memo to an ISU official, even though we were about to host our own. I will for instance never forget the prices of the hotel that tripled from only a week before competition, the official draw was held in a room with not even enough chairs for skaters let alone for officials or chaperons, official training warm-up time started at 5.15am (wake up time 4 am), a skater’s party held behind the bleachers at the rink and a slow, sad atmosphere during the entire competition… Why am I mentioning all this? To point out the most important thing once again. I mean the ex- perience and satisfaction of the skaters at every competition. One has to surround the athletes with enthusiasm and conditions made to develop their discipline. To mount a successful competi- tion, you need knowledge, experience, a good team that knows the technology and most important, you have to know what teams need, what skaters want, what makes them happy? Therefore you need people who understand that the performance of a team is very important, but the smiles on their faces are at least equally important if not more. You probably don’t remember but back in 2004 we were the first to turn the official draw ceremony into a party by having a professional singer make the 1200 skaters and fans dance. I’m also certain, you’re not aware that I’m personally responsible for all music, played between teams’ performances while the judges are deliberating. I was really appalled by the ghostly silence during the sometimes long reviewing time. That’s when I asked if there was a specific rule against music. This wasn’t the case, so it’s us that started to play music, quietly at first but louder as time went by. The audience loved it. Interesting facts – 19 big ISU competition in SYS were held in Zagreb from 2001 to 2017. Not less than 151 different teams attended, all ages, from 24 countries from all continents; We organized 3 World Championships (2 senior, 1 junior), 2 World Challenge Cups for Juniors and 14 Zagreb Snowflakes Trophies gathering a total of 10.000 skaters, coaches, officials and guests from all over the world. 115.000 spectators over the years watched these competitions. It wouldn’t be possible without the support of the Croa- tian Skating Federation led by President Morana Palik- ovic Gruden, since 2004, who’s also Vice-President of the Croatian Olympic Committee. She immediately saw the potential of this sport and its potential Olympic future. SO, WILL SYNCHRONIZED SKATING BECOME AN OLYMPIC SPORT? And now we come to the most important question – why is our discipline still not a part of the Olympic family? Could we or should we already have been a part of the Winter Olympics in South Korea 2018, will we make it in China 2022 and what can we do to contribute to this goal? Do we have to change something in our approach or competition organization? What is more important – quality or quantity? What can we do to get both (more quality teams frommore ISU members)? Yes, I am certain that we belong at the Olympics and that we should have been included years ago. With all SYNCHRO NICE 121