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
