Wight Jewels, the Island’s junior synchronized skating team, flew out to Lyon on 5 November to compete in the French Masters synchronized skating competition. The competition took place over two days with the short programme skated on the Saturday evening and the long programme on Sunday afternoon. It was the first year that the competition had been opened up to non-French teams and was a good opportunity for the team to get some international competition early in the season.

The team finished second to Black Diams from Compiegne in France. The Wight Jewels’ scores were their best for the season and were a big improvement on the scores achieved at the recent Skate Wales competition in Deeside. They scored 29.16 in their short program and 52.8 for their long program. Their short program score was just 0.84 short of the 30 points set by the National Ice Skating Association to become part of the performance squad.

Coach Terri Smith was pleased with the team’s performance, and now knows what the team needs to work on to try to improve the scores. The team are disadvantaged by training on a small size rink and have been working hard to try to improve their power and speed across the ice.

The team only has two weeks to prepare for the British Championships in Sheffield where they hope to retain their British title and that their performance will be good enough to be selected to represent Great Britain at the Junior World Challenge Cup in Switzerland in March 2011. Also competing in Sheffield will be the Island’s two other synchro teams: Wight Crystals and Wight Gems.

The Wight Jewels would like to thank Wightlink, Planet Ice and Shanklin and Ventnor’s Rotary Clubs for their continued support, and Vikoma, The Tomato Stall and Shanklin Conservative Club for sponsoring the team this season.

The squad of 18 who travelled to France were Nicola Baxter, Yelena Brown, Isabelle Coeshott, Sabrina Danzig, Gemma Fishel, Mikki Graham, Leah Hancott, Beth Howarth, Daisy Jones, Heather MacDonald, Alicia Macintyre, Gemma Marsh, Charlotte Mennie, Isabella Parkes, Keelin Scholes, Zoe Southwell, Emma Wilks and Louisa Wrighton.