Figure skating is one of those sports that will get a strange rep for being both enduringly individual and fiercely competitive. If you watched movies like I, Tonya or even Ice Princess, you most likely believe that ice skaters are inherently adversarial both on and off the ice-and in the Olympic Games, rivalries are what make headlines.
For me, growing up like a figure skater meant the exact opposite. It meant goofing off at Saturday 5 a.m. freestyle sessions, post-practice garlic bread at Dan’s Pizza, an extra group of hands to wash slush out of beige tights, along with a tight-knit team that knew how you can assist me to sew a hairnet into my hair therefore it didn’t fall out when i spun.
But I’m not just referring to a detailed community; like thousands of other skaters worldwide, I had been on the figure skating team in a sport called synchronized skating, in which I’d actually compete alongside 15 other skaters gliding in perfect synchrony. The game is somewhat lesser known, mostly due to its insufficient Olympic representation, there is however a strong possibility that that will change soon since the most enjoyable sport you’ve never heard of is on the right track to make its grand Olympic debut at the 2022 Winter Games.
Goran Jaku? / Alamy Stock Photo
But let’s backtrack for a moment and begin using the basics: Synchronized skating is really a discipline of figure skating, like pairs skating and ice dancing. It is a team sport where 8-20 skaters perform one program together, moving as a unit through different formations (like circles, lines, and blocks) and challenging teamwork sequences (like creative lines of spirals and intersections).
In the United States, there are 14 different levels by which synchronized skaters can compete, ranging from beginner teams to senior teams.
There’s less buzz about the sport than there is about, say, ice dancing, since it is not really a part of the Winter Olympic Games each year, despite decades of attempts to get it recognized. In the United States alone, there are 650 registered synchronized skating teams.
Around the world, the sport is constantly on the thrive too. This past year, Team Russia took gold at the World Synchronized Skating Championships right in front of Team Finland, Team Canada, and Team Usa. Twenty-four teams competed, with everyone from Croatia and Austria to Sweden and Japan represented. South Korea’s first-ever synchro team just had its first competition in Milan a couple weeks ago.
Clearly, the talent and interest are there, and also the thrilling moves which make the worry of falls and mass pileups are attention-grabbing in the same manner NASCAR races are.
So why is it not within the Olympics yet? Works out, it’s practically nothing related to public interest.
Famed international skating judge and former U.S. figure skating Olympic team leader Gale Tanger knows much better than anyone what it really will require for synchronized skating to become green-lit for that 2022 Olympic Winter Games in Beijing.
“We certainly possess the passion out there, and the people that view it think it’s wonderful. It’s the process that really becomes very complex,” Tanger, who’s been advocating to include synchronized skating towards the Olympic agenda for years, tells InStyle. You will find three stages of approval necessary before that can happen: OKs from host country, the International Skating Union (also referred to as the International Federation or the ISU), and finally the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
And you will find multiple factors that might dissuade any kind of those parties from tallying, including logistics, bed space, cost, and just how many countries have teams ready to compete.
At the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games, there was enough village space to accommodate the game, however the IOC worried that there weren’t enough competing nations. Prior to the 2006 Torino Winter Games, obama of the IOC said no for spacial reasons. In front of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games, Canada’s Olympic Committee didn’t grant approval. Prior to the 2014 Sochi Winter Games, Russia said yes coupled with the bed space and rink space, but the International Federation scrapped the idea in favor of a different figure skating “team event” so as not to confuse viewers. And for the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Games, Columbia said no since it didn’t have the area or perhaps an international team of its own up to now.
But using the 2022 Beijing Winter Games coming, Tanger is at it again, and there is some serious hope this time.
“The great thing about this time around is the fact that we do have Chinese [synchronized] teams, so we’re [in a ] better [position] than i was in Korea … and it is not only us,” Tanger says. “Our National Olympic Committee continues to be powerfully for us since Salt Lake. The U.S. Olympic Committee is most likely one of the greatest supporters of this. However, the Russian Olympic Committee is jumping in.”
Additionally, Tanger believes this bid will get more backing through the International Federation.
“If it’s approved by China, it’ll come back to the International Federation, the ISU. I know that this time they’ll say yes because [the ISU has] a brand new president and things have changed. I am sure we’ll get a yes off of that. Then it goes into the final step, the IOC,” she says.
And therein lies the ultimate challenge: Many of the sports industry members who make up the International Olympic Committee are affiliated with sports in the Summer Olympics, not the wintertime Olympics, Tanger says. “When it goes in to the IOC for a vote, remember that almost all people in the IOC are summer sports people, therefore it is a matter of them being familiar enough with what this really is and achieving China strongly saying that they need it.”
The first step within this multi-step process-a decision by China whether synchronized skating could be viable to allow them to host-will occur over the following couple weeks.
In the meantime, the thousands of synchronized skaters and synchro lovers (myself included) will watch with interest for the day when the world sees a new type of high-risk and camaraderie-filled figure skating. And until then, we’ll tune into the women’s free skate competition, airing tonight at 8 p.m.
