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The 2017 ISU World Synchronized Skating Championships gets under way this week in Colorado Springs, USA.

Teams have been arriving in the US over the past week to acclimatize to the time difference (7 hours behind the UK) and the altitude: the event arena is at more that 1,700 metres, and many competing teams train at not much above sea level. The last particularly high altitude championships, at Courmayeur in 2014, was at only about 1,400 metres. Teams have been able to practice at the nearby US Airforce Academy rink at over 2,000 metres.

The UK is again represented by Team Zariba of Aberdeen, who flew out Tuesday. Zariba managed to raise an impressive £22,829 through fundraising to finance the trip. The Isle of Wight’s Gemma Marsh is flying the flag for Sweden as part of Team Surprise (Sweden 1).

Unofficial practice gets under way tomorrow (5 April). The short programme is on 7 April, starting at 6pm local time until 9.24pm (1am to 4.24 am on 8 April in the UK); the free is on 8 April at 3.45pm to 8.30pm (10.45pm on 8 April to 3.30am on 9 April in the UK). Times are taken from the current schedule at: http://assets.ngin.com

Streaming is via icenetwork in the US and requires a season pass. For the rest of the world, it is streamed free on the ISU skating channel: the competition is typically available at lower resolution on catch-up afterwards if the live viewing times prove too much.

Entries and results: www.isuresults.com/results/season1617/wcsys2017

Streaming (free, embargoed in US): www.eurovisionsports.tv/isu/

Streaming (US only, requires season pass): http://web.icenetwork.com

Official Website: www.2017synchroworlds.com

ISU event page: www.isu.org

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IW synchronized skating teams are in action this weekend at the Trophy D’Ecosse in Dumfries, and the teams set off from the Island early this morning. The competition takes place from 10 to 12 February at Dumfries Ice Bowl.

Illness means that senior team Wight Jewels will be skating with only 15 skaters, which affects the choreography of the routines and limits the scores for elements.

Wight Crystals compete in the advanced novice B event, Wight Sparkles in the juvenile event, and Wight Sequins in the elementary event.

Live streaming is by Ryan Thornton of On the Rocks via a YouTube playlist. YouTube is hot on apparent musical copyright violations and if you miss a category live, it may be muted later.

Update (10 February): Wight Sequins were 5th in the elementary category, scoring 16.39. Wight Sparkles were third in the juvenile category, scoring 20.26. Wight Jewels are in fifth place in the seniors on 25.21.

The Sequins were awarded most entertaining programme, repeating their achievement of the British championships.

Update (11 February): Wight Crystals were third in the advanced novice B competion, scoring 24.19.

Wight Jewels scored 56.25 for their free programme in the senior competition, placing them fourth in this section. Overall, however, they narrowly missed advancing a place with a total of 81.46, and finished fifth. The score was their best at an ISU event this season.

Streaming: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1oHF3YryNMS-jPoLnbYelm5vtG_ZYbbO

Results: www.iceresultsuk.org.uk/TrophyD’Ecosse/2017/index.htm

Official site: www.trophydecosse.co.uk

Facebook: www.facebook.com/Trophy-dEcosse-689879894424780/

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Wight Jewels: the team continue to skate in spite of the closure of their home ice rink

IW senior synchronized skating team Wight Jewels compete this weekend at the Leon Lurje Trophy in Gothenburg, Sweden, which takes place at the Frölundaborg ice rink on 28 and 29 January. The Jewels are up against tough international competition.

Streaming costs SEK 130 for access via one device (PC, iPhone, iPad), and from this event is typically of high quality in our experience. Payment also gives access to on-demand video after the competition. The competition begins at 15.05 GMT on Saturday and at noon on Sunday (CET is one hour later).

Update (28 January): Wight Jewels scored 23.95 for their Bollywood-themed short programme and are in 7th place.

Update (29 January): Wight Jewels scored 41.57 in the free for a total of 65.52 and 7th place overall.

The Jewels, of course, have no ice rink since AEW Europe shut it down in 2016. They get about one and a half hours’ skating a week at other ice rinks late at night, and many of them have no opportunity to increase that skating time as individuals each week. The fact that they are able to compete at all this season is a tribute to their hard work and dedication.

Official site: www.leonlurje-trophy.se

Streaming: https://studio.leonlurje-trophy.se

Results: http://skatesweden.wehost.se/16-17/Synchro/LeonLurje/html/index.htm

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Live streaming of the Cup of Berlin, which takes place on 6 and 7 January, is at http://sportdeutschland.tv/eiskunstlauf/cup-berlin-2017_2

The UK’s Team Spirit, which is based in Cardiff but attracts skaters from across the country, competes in the senior event. The team has a busy schedule, with the British synchro championships on 14 and 15 January and then the Mozart Cup on 19 to 22 January.

iowskaters.com will properly wake up as a site this season for the British synchro championships, when our currently rinkless teams will take part.

Update: Team Spirit scored 69.03 in total for 8th place.

Results: http://www.deu-event.de/results/CoB2017/index.htm

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The 2016 senior World Synchronized Skating Championships take place this week in Budapest on 7 to 9 April.

iowskaters should be at the event in time for the opening ceremony on 7 April, and any coverage we see fit to put up will be on our Facebook page. Our ability to post will be limited by internet connections. We are there mainly to enjoy ourselves: you might want to follow Jura Synchro for reports from the event (www.jurasynchro.ch).

Live streaming of the event is on the ISU skating channel at http://www.eurovisionsports.tv/isu/. The event is geoblocked in the USA and Canada: coverage in the USA is on icenetwork.com and requires a season pass.

The short programme starts at 6pm CET (5pm UK, noon east coast USA) on Friday 8 April; the free programme starts at 3pm CET (2pm UK, 9am east coast USA) on Saturday 9 April.

Official website: http://syswc2016budapest.hu/en/

Streaming: http://www.eurovisionsports.tv/isu/live.html?id=66

Results: http://www.isuresults.com/results/season1516/wcsys2016/index.htm

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The ISU Synchronized Skating Junior World Challenge Cup takes place in Zagreb, Croatia, on 11 and 12 March, with UK interest in the shape of Nottingham’s Icicles. Icicles will be trying to better their excellent result of 14th place in the world, which they have attained twice over the past two years.

The 13th Zagreb Snowflakes Trophy also takes place over the two days, covering Basic and Advanced Novice and Senior events.

Update (14 March 2016): Icicles were 15th overall in the JWCC with a total score of 97.29, which as usual was well down on the score at the British Championships (117.44 – scores at the British typically do not withstand contact with the real world of ISU competitions). Icicles were 15th after the short on 32.28, and 15th in the free on 65.01. Although they slipped one place compared with last year, they were 22.18 points clear of the 16th-placed team, and therefore firmly in the mix in the cluster of countries scoring in the high 90s to low 100s, with plenty to build on for next season.

Live streaming

Live streaming has been announced at a cost of GBP 8.49 per day and is available via Daily Motion:

Day 1: www.dailymotion.com/video/x3wogbw_isu-synchronized-skating-junior-world-challenge-cup-2016-day-1_sport

Basic Novice starts at 4pm CET (3pm UK), the Junior short of the JWCC at 5.45 pm CET (4.45pm UK), and the Senior short at 9.05pm CET (8.05pm UK).

Day 2: www.dailymotion.com/video/x3wpvi3_isu-synchronized-skating-junior-world-challenge-cup-2016-day-2_sport

Advanced Novice starts at 4pm CET (3pm UK), the Junior free of the JWCC at 4.30pm CET (3.30pm UK), and the Senior free at 8.20pm CET (7.20pm UK)

If you were directed here by the ISU website, please note that iowskaters is merely reporting the links published on the croskate.hr website and the charges posted on the Daily Motion site, and is neither responsible for streaming coverage of the event nor the decision to charge £8.49 a day.

Last year’s coverage via the same route was a debacle; this year was no better, the issue was initially incessant commentary and then termination of the stream on day two because of complaints to Daily Motion that copyright was infringed on the music. Copyright infringement is a new problem for post-event skating videos on services such as YouTube, with a number of routines muted because of music copyright infringement in a particular country; loss of coverage of the JWCC is possibly the first live broadcast event to suffer during transmission.

Protocol (results): http://static.isu.org/media/309115/isu_sys_junior_world_challenge_cup_2016_protocol.pdf

Results: The event results link is dead. Use the protocol above.

Official site: www.croskate.hr

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Team Surprise in Shanghai: our IW connection is being hoisted skywards top right!

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.

+++ CAUTION – AT YOUR OWN RISK +++

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.

+++ CAUTION ENDS +++

Event website: http://shtrophy.com/

Results: www.isuresults.com/results/season1516/st2016/

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