Posted in Audio & Video Files, Ice Skating News & Events, Press Cuttings on October 13, 2016| Leave a Comment »
Wight Jewels captain Izzy Coeshott was interviewed about the team’s fundraising and need to travel to Bracknell rink on Radio Solent for the Louisa Hannan show on 12 October.
Wightlink sponsors the IW synchronized skating teams, helping with some of the ferry costs for travel to the mainland.
The Wight Jewels’ fundraising campaign is at https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/wight-jewels
Posted in Audio & Video Files, Ice Skating News & Events, Interviews, Press Cuttings on October 13, 2016| Leave a Comment »
BBC South Today covered the campaign to save Ryde ice rink in its evening broadcast on 12 October.
The broadcast gives the impression that Bracknell is the nearest rink on which the Wight Jewels can train: it is the nearest ice rink for which they can currently get ice time – Gosport and Basinsgtoke rinks are nearer.
Wightlink also sponsors the IW synchronized skating teams, helping with some of the ferry costs.
The Wight Jewels’ fundraising campaign is at https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/wight-jewels
Posted in Audio & Video Files, Ice Skating News & Events, Synchronized Skating on January 19, 2016| Leave a Comment »
IW synchro teams featured in BBC South Today’s Performance of the Week slot on 18 January because of their achievements at the British Synchronized Skating Championships on 16 and 17 January in Nottingham – results achieved despite the temporary closure of Ryde ice rink.
Posted in Audio & Video Files, Synchronized Skating on March 18, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Wight Jewels were Junior British champions for the 2008/9, 2009/10, 2010/11 and 2011/12 seasons, runners-up in 2012/13 and 2013/14; Junior Scottish champions in 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2013; Junior Welsh champions for the 2010/11 and 2011/12 seasons. They were members of NISA’s performance squad for 2011/12, 2012/13 and 2013/14. The Trophy D’Ecosse in 2013 gave them their first gold medal at an ISU event.
The Jewels competed at the Junior World Challenge Cup (JWCC) – the junior world championships – in Gothenburg, Sweden, in 2010, placing 19th. They improved their place to 17th at the JWCC held at Neuchâtel, Switzerland, in 2011. At the JWCC in 2012, again held in Gothenburg, they achieved 15th place – the highest position achieved by a British team for more than 10 years (event archives at http://www.eiskunstlauf-ecke.de/). At the time, the only British team to have has placed higher was Bracknell’s Ice Metrics, who placed 11th at the first ever JWCC in Neuchâtel.
The Jewels were ranked as high as 14th in the world, according to the ISU world standings published on 10 June 2012.
The team has achieved all this based on a two-thirds sized ice rink, on an island with a limited catchment area: the team has tended to field everyone who shows an interest, rather than having the luxury of try-outs for places. The Jewels have attracted skaters from the mainland, including Mikki Graham from Derbyshire, Gemma Sanders from Basingstoke, Maria Holdcroft from Oxford, and Amy World from Gosport, all of whom have made incredible sacrifices to practice and skate with the team.
The above photo montage by Wight Jewel Beth Howarth will allow you to relive all that.
Posted in Audio & Video Files, History of Skating, Synchronized Skating on March 27, 2013| 1 Comment »
With the end of an era approaching in Isle of Wight synchronized skating, iowskaters has been trawling through the vaults to look at how far the discipline has progressed. The clip presented here shows Isle of Wight synchronized skating team Wight Diamonds competing in their first British championships, held on 22 January 2006 in Nottingham. The team competed at intermediate level.
The Diamonds had by now swelled to 16 skaters: Sarah England, Phoena Wilmott Bayer, Kate Nutborne, Emma Wilks, Georgina Bourne, Katie Brannan, Emily Adams, Kate England, Gemma Marsh, Nicole Hinton, Ellie Taylor, Yelena Brown, Sabrina Danzig, Sarah Close, Gemma Fishel and Isabelle Coeshott. But Gemma Marsh would not skate at this event, suffering a scaphoid fracture just weeks beforehand.
The team skated well to take fifth place. They finished ahead of the Gosport All Stars, who had beaten the Diamonds at Lee Valley just two months earlier. Lee Valley’s Eclipse were first, Bracknell’s Fusion second, Moray Dolphins third and Aberdeen’s Snow Leopards were fourth.
The routine, music and dresses had changed in the space of two months. The Diamonds skated to a medley from Grease, which to this day still sees use by an IW synchro team: the Sparkles. As do the same striking purple and black outfits.
The British Synchronized Skating Championships for the 2005/6 season had few entries: three adult teams, four juvenile teams and six intermediate teams. Of those, three were from Lee Valley – a reminder that once upon a time everything in UK synchro revolved around this east London club.
The Wight Diamonds, January 2006. Coach Terri Smith (nee Fleming) is pictured left
Posted in Audio & Video Files, History of Skating, Synchronized Skating on March 26, 2013| Leave a Comment »
With the end of an era approaching in Isle of Wight synchronized skating, iowskaters has been trawling through the video vaults to look at how far the discipline has progressed. The clip presented here is a practice session at Ryde for the Lee Valley Synchronized Skating Opens on 19 November 2005. iowskaters has chosen a practice session because it shows the individual skaters clearly, allowing today’s generation to identify them even though the technology of the time is fuzzy.
November 2005 was a landmark month for the Wight Diamonds. All the members passed the novice synchro test on Sunday 6 November, meaning they were of a high enough level to take part in the British Synchro Championships in January 2006. Synchro tests, of course, are now a thing of the past, with team members required to have specific levels in field moves.
The Diamonds also had to compete at the Lee Valley Synchronized Skating Opens on Saturday 19 November in order to qualify for the championships. The team would face their bête noire of those early years: Gosport, the club that regularly came on top in Solent friendly competitions. And again, they would finish behind them.
Posted in Audio & Video Files, History of Skating, Synchronized Skating on March 25, 2013| 1 Comment »
With the end of an era approaching in Isle of Wight synchronized skating, iowskaters has been trawling through the video vaults to look at how far the discipline has progressed. The clip presented here is from the 2005 National Team Challenge (NTC) at Bracknell on 26 June.
The Wight Diamonds’ music had changed to Birdland. The dresses had changed from red to all gold; these otufits were to resurface in all their itchy glory on other IW synchro teams in years to come. The gold dresses are not the only ones to be reused and modified, as later reports will show. The team is still only skating 12 skaters: it would only reach 16 later in the year.
And here iowskaters admits to a failing: information about the 2005 NTC is next to non-existent. With the IW NTC team having a glorious history of not being placed in the event, the 2005 NTC has gone unreported in our archives, probably because at the time the club’s policy was not to report on placings outside the top three.
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