SynchroNice / Third Edition / 2018

SYNCHRO NICE 129 We received a lot of positive feedback on including junior skaters in to our interviews and magazine. So, we would like to continue interviewing these Juniors, but they can’t be just anybody. They have to be top of the bill, crème de la crème, cream of the crop, so to speak, and we think 18-year-old Junior skater Jasmine Kuusla is someone that totally fits into such a description. KUUSLA JASMINE Tell us jasmine where do you skate? I skate in the junior team” Musketeers” from Helsinki Finland. And are you still in school? I’m still studying that is correct. I go to the Mäkelänrinne Sports High School, where you can find almost half of my team- mates as well. Do you also live in Helsinki? Yes, I live in Helsinki with my family. Musketeers? Isn’t that sort of the talent pool where MIU find their new skaters? Yes, that’s probably true. One thing is for sure though, the senior skaters of Marigold IceUnity are role models to me as well as my teammates. Sometimes we have ice practices together with them. Then we skate next to them and we get to practise together for example the pivoting block. The help and feedback we get from our seniors is really priceless. I think this kind of collaboration is great and all the skaters in MIU inspire our team to work even harder towards our goals, so yes maybe if there’s a vacancy in senior, it’s very likely that one of the Musketeers will have the right attitude to fill up that spot. You say attitude, is that important? I do believe that a positive attitude in general is extremely important and something that will carry you a long way in life. What more can you tell us to characterize yourself? First of all, I woud say that I’m extremely honest and therefore I probably am the worst liar in the world as well! Some people would also probably say that I have a good sense of humor, but that’s something I wouldn’t always be so sure about hahaha. I’m active type of person and I like to participate in things where you need creativity and you’re allowed to express yourself. On the other hand, I’m often quite lazy especially concerning all things not related to skating. (Big Smile) Let me guess, you started as a solo skater? Who told you that? Well most skaters we talk to did. I started skating at the age of 3 in Helsinki.My parents took me to the skating school and I liked it very much. I also tested many other and different sports and hobbies in my childhood, stuff like track&field, dancing, art school and many others, but skating always felt like the right choice. After skating school, I did indeed start out with figure skating at first. I didn’t change it to synchro… until summer of 2014. I was having long lasting back pains that were caused by the triple jump’s hard landings. Unfortunately, I couldn’t continue figure skating any longer at that level, so I had to start thinking about alternatives, because I didn’t want to stop skating. And that’s when you started in Synchro? Yes, but I just decided to test it out this synchronized skating. As a figure skater, I had some really stereotypical thoughts about Synchronized Skating and the Synchronized Skaters. In my opinion Synchro was just a weird sport where a group of girls were holding on to each other on the ice and just crying and yelling a lot on the Ice. Now I know of course what that weirdness is, that I didn’t recognize at that time. It’s called