| Justine Daley Skates In Denver, Colorado |
| Friday, January 23, 2009 2:23:22 PM - Middletown Ohio |
 By: Ann Mort
While other students are running up and down the basketball floor, using the mats, or swimming laps, Justine Daley, a junior at Bishop Fenwick High School, laces up her skates and joins her twenty teammates on the ice and competes in Synchronized Ice Skating, a sport that has been growing in this country for years. Miss Daley and her teammates head to Denver, Colorado this weekend to compete for a berth at Nationals in March.
Synchronized skating, a large and fast-growing discipline, consists of 8-20 athletes skating on ice at one time moving as one flowing unit at high speeds. This discipline of figure skating was originally called precision skating in North America because of the emphasis on maintaining precise formations and timing of the group.
While this might be the first time that you have heard of the sport, there are many skaters that are preparing for their senior season and look forward to the 2010 Olympics in hopes that it will be one of the exhibition sports. It also might surprise many readers that this area has many teams competing locally and some even on the national level. Miami University Goggin Ice Area is home to the second place 2008 U.S. National Champions and was the first American team to medal at the World Synchronized Skating Championships earning a silver medal in 2007.
Miss Justine Daley, Junior at Bishop Fenwick High School is member of “The Oxford Ice Crystals” that has earned the rank of 3rd in the nation; on the circuit, their team is the “team to beat!” She and her team travel and compete this weekend in Denver, Colorado looking forward to Nationals in March in Portland Maine.
Justine has been skating competitively since age 8. She and her teammates come from different communities, some as far away as Indianapolis, Indiana; they practice twice a week together at Miami University and spend many more hours with individual and team practices at other rinks in the area.
Miss Daley is disciplined and precise not only on the ice but in her school work as well. Next week she will be inducted in the National Honor Society, an organization for students who exhibit the qualities of scholarship (3.5 GPA minimum), leadership, character, and service.
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