Figure skatingSynchronized skating teams up the ante

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A team from either Finland or Sweden has won the synchro world championship every time but one. (Hrvoje Polan/AFP/Getty Images)

The ISU World Synchronized Skating Championship goes this weekend in Helsinki, Finland, where 21 teams from 16 countries will vie for this discipline's top honour.

Canada has qualified two teams: Nexxice, the five-time Canadian and 2009 world champions, and Les Supremes, whose best finish at worlds was a bronze in 2003.

In a year marked by technical changes in the other disciplines of figure skating, synchro skaters also upped the ante.

In both the line and block elements in synchronized skating, being able to achieve a Level 4 has become much more difficult. As with its figure skating cousins, in synchro skating teams must perform a short and a free program and are evaluated in the same way, with levels and grades of execution assigned to the performed elements.

With the exception of the world championship in 2009, when Nexxice took top spot, the title has been won by either a Finnish or Swedish team each time. Rockettes, the defending world champions from Finland, are the front runners and will no doubt be able to capitalize on home-ice advantage.

Also in the hunt this year will be Sweden's Team Surprise, who seem to be back on track after a couple of rebuilding years. The American champions, Haydenettes, were the 2010 world bronze medallists and are keen to find their way to the podium again in Finland.

Canada's two teams will not in any way, shape or form shrink away from the challenge, and are arriving in Finland intent on putting out their best programs.

Lyne Forget, the coach of Les Supremes, says she is ready for worlds and counts her team's performance at an international event in France as its biggest accomplishment:

"When we placed second in France we got very good feedback. It was even more of an accomplishment knowing where we started, and it brings a new degree of reality for the skaters of the success of their season," Forget says. "I am as proud of the girls as they are of themselves, and we are a solid team going to worlds."

For Shelley Barnett, the coach of Nexxice, winning this year's national title was "unexpected" and getting to worlds is an accomplishment on its own. Her team experienced huge turnover from last year to this, and of the 23 skaters on the squad, 15 are new to the team with 12 on the line and three in training. There are two skaters who are brand-new to Synchro, two skaters who are from Finland, and for the first time Nexxice has a male skater.

"We want to skate well at worlds," Barnett says. "The rest is out of our hands and it would be lovely to place in the top five."

The ISU says that synchronized skating is the fastest growing of the ice sports under their umbrella, and where there is ice sport, there are devoted fans.

With that in mind, this week's iAsk question is all about what you think. Post your answer in the comments section at the bottom of this story and it may get read on CBC's broadcast of the world synchro championship on April 16 (CBC, CBCSports.ca, 4 p.m. ET).

The question: In your opinion, what qualities define your favourite synchro team competing in Helsinki?

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