The Shanghai Trophy for synchronized skating and short track speed skating gets under way in Shanghai, China in just a few hours. Held over 4 to 6 March, there is synchro on all three days, with the short programmes on Friday, the free programmes on Saturday and the exhibition programmes on Sunday.
Entry to the synchro competition has been by invitation, and the top six countries in the world are attending with one team each: Haydenettes from the USA, Marigold Ice Unity from Finland, Nexxice from Canada, Paradise from Russia, Team Berlin 1 from Germany, and Team Surprise from Sweden. The Isle of Wight has an interest in the competition because former Wight Jewel Gemma Marsh is a member of Team Surprise.
Results are available for the synchro at www.isuresults.com/results/season1516/st2016/. The results site gives a start time for the synchro of 8.06pm (12.06pm UK).
According to the ISU there is no live streaming for this event. However, Team Paradise posted a link in Russian on its Instagram account for streaming via Chinese internet sports channel CCTV-5 Sports Plus. CCTV-5 Sports Plus’s schedules show the Shanghai Trophy is broadcast only on Saturday and Sunday at 6pm to 7.30pm Chinese time (10am to 11.30am UK time). Trailers for the event broadcast on Saturday confirm this. Coverage will include both short track speed skating and synchronized skating.
The official site for CCTV-5 Sports Plus is http://tv.cctv.com/live/cctv5plus/sd/index.shtml – it does not support Chrome on my Mac, and requests Safari, for which it wants to download the CNTVLive plug-in, which is a risk as unknown plug-ins may not be everything they seem. There is an official app for the channel for iPhone and Android if your Chinese is any good.
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Paradise’s link for CCTV-5 Plus is http://www.zoptv.com/live/cctv-5-plus – this is a site that appears to bypass the official CCTV-5 Plus site (which requires an internet plug-in, whereas zoptv does not). It will only work if Adblocker is disabled, though it is possible to disable Adblocker, refresh the page as requested, and then re-enable Adblocker. The site is heavy on advertising if you click on anything and there is no way to tell if the ads are genuine or lead to viruses, trojans and the like. Do not click on instructions asking you to download plug-ins to enhance the viewing experience – they are the likeliest source of malware.
Viewing is possible using a browser on iPad/iPhone or Android and seems not to throw up adverts as badly.
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Event website: http://shtrophy.com/
iowskaters.com 