Perhaps the two magpies that team members spotted on their trek through Slottsskogsparken were indeed a herald of the joy that was to come in the short programme for IW synchronized skating team the Wight Jewels. By the end of the day, they’d attained an unprecedented 15th place after the short programme at the Junior World Challenge Cup in Gothenburg, and secured a good skate position of fourth in the long, immediately after the resurface that breaks up the lower division of six teams.

The team could honestly not have asked for anything better: their aim this year has been to improve one place, which meant overtaking Frost Work of Hungary, as well as maintaining their previous edge over teams from Australia and Netherlands. If the positions achieved in the short are maintained, then Wight Jewels will achieve that goal.

In the end, skating first in the short probably worked in Wight Jewels’ favour: the girls were confident with no other team results to think about and just went out and skated strongly. The changes to the programme worked in their favour, resulting in an improvement on the score achieved last month in Milan at the Spring Cup, despite one element not being called: the Jewels and Swedish entrants Team Spirit and Team Convivium were the only teams who also competed at the Spring Cup to improve on that event’s short programme scores.

Overall the Jewels scored 22.85, on a clean programme with no deductions, holding first place for all of five minutes before Hot Shivers of Italy claimed the position with a score of 31.06, who in turn relinquished that to Idel of Russia on 31.37.

Majestic Ice of Australia, skating fourth, scored 19.61 – drastically down on their national championship short programme score of 30.25 – for 17th place. They won’t be the first or last team to discover just how tough scoring is at the JWCC compared with national championships. Of the other teams targeted by Wight Jewels, Duke Town Twinkle Stars of the Netherlands scored 17.85 for 18th place, and Frost Work of Hungary 22.36 for 16th place.

Black Diam’s of France is technically reachable on 27.55, and 14th position, but closing a 4.7 gap is probably asking too much based on previous competitions, even of a pair of lucky magpies. Consolidating their position will probably be the Jewels’ aim.

In the top division, the battle between Musketeers and Team Fintastic was as keen as ever. Fintastic is first after the short with 55.90, with Musketeers second on 54.34 – but the tables have been turned before in the long. Braemar upset the USA applecart as second team, turning in 49.94 to overtake first team Skyliners on 47.21. Braemar is currently third, followed by Les Supremes of Canada in fourth (48.64) and Skyliners in fifth.

At the opening ceremony, held before the short programme commenced, Wight Jewels Kirsty Atter and Hannah Barfoot represented the team on ice.

For official results, free of late night typing errors, check the website at http://studio.jwcc2012.se/results/