On early Saturday morning, around 9 o'clock, our team members arrived slowly one by one to Paloheinä. First we headed to the changing room to get dressed in the competition dresses for a photo shoot, which took place shortly after nine. After the photo shooting, we went warming up for our last practice on ice before the competition. The training went rather well and everyone could be satisfied. At 11 o'clock it was time to jump into a charter bus and direct to Joensuu. The way was long (almost seven hours) and the scenery boring, but somehow we kept ourselves entertained - maybe even too entertained, namely once in a while we got some annoyed looks from the front parts of the bus from the national seniors. We arrived in Joensuu shortly before 6 pm, got our hotel rooms, and then went together for dinner.
After getting some food we had a team meeting in one of the hotel rooms. However, everybody was already quite tired so we went to bed soon.
Sunday morning was calling with an early wake-up. We got started by doing the hair and make-up. Around 7 am we were more or less ready and went downstairs for breakfast. Luckily we had about 50 easy minutes before getting to the ice rink. Nevertheless, Time flew by and soon we were already at the Joensuu indoor ice rink. At 8 o'clock it was time to start warming up and do some dry runs to practice our routine.
At 9:24 it was time to show up. It was actually the first time we did the whole programme from the beginning till the end with the whole team! Nevertheless, it went really well considering how it looked like, say, two weeks ago.
Best words I come up with to describe the feeling after the performance are excitement and relief. The only unfortunate thing was that we had to wait over four hours for the results in the auditorium, but we spent the time watching other teams performing in different divisions of the nationals, and in the meanwhile went for lunch, too.
Finally, after the impatient waiting, the results were presented. All teams gathered back on ice and the winners were announced. For our big surprise we started to hear our music coming from the loudspeakers and then we started screaming. We had won! Amazing, Team Antique had really won, and with a yet unpolished routine! That really made the win feel sooo much better.
The weekend was successful for other HSK teams as well: Team Sympatique and Team Panique won also in their own divisions, and Team Hysterique took silver. So on the way back home the busses were full of joyful synchro skaters who were excited yet tired of the long day. Yet, I must say after experiencing all this - my very first synchro competition ever - no matter how sweet winning is, in the end it's all about having fun with a good team - and we have one of the best :)
Final results:
1. Team Antique, HSK 35,20
2. Shadows, ETK 32,00
3. Ice Comedy, TTK 31,20
4. Creme de Ments, HL 28,70
5. Team Ice Ladies, PoriTa 18,80
Outside the competition:
Team Ice Passion, Varala-Tiimi 34,00
http://www.joensuunkataja.fi/taitoluistelu/kilpailu/ML_kans2009.htm
