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Ice skaters play it cool at ISI
meet
By Chuck McShane
Correspondent
While most Fayetteville residents were
sweating out the summer, members of the Ice Palace figure skating team
kept cool on the ice.
They skated their way to an impressive
finish in the 2002 Ice Skating Institute (ISI) World Competition.
The ISI competition brought 2,400 skaters on
teams from Philadelphia to the Philippines to the Boston suburb of
Marlborough, Mass., during the last week of July.
The nine-member Ice Palace team, in its
first year of attending the competition, placed 29th out of 124 teams. The
Fayetteville team posted even stronger individual results.
‘‘I’m ecstatic about the way we performed in
Boston,” said Ice Palace coach Robin Harger. ‘‘The girls worked really
hard this summer and it paid off at the competition.”
The Ice Palace team consists of about 35
members of various skill levels, ranging in age from 5 to 26 years old.
Most skaters on the team are also members of
the Cape Fear Figure Skating Club, which competes in the more competitive
United States Figure Skating Association.
The team practiced at the Crown Colesium
until the Fayettevile Force left town last year, then they moved to
McClelland Rink on Fort Bragg. This summer, the skaters found themselves
without a local rink to practice in, forcing many skaters to take to the
road.
‘‘These girls and their parents are very
dedicated to skating,” Harger said. ‘‘Some of the parents and skaters
would get up at four in the morning to go to Raleigh to find a rink to
practice on, then come back to Fayetteville for school the same morning.”
The figure skating season is year-round and
requires daily practice, Harger said. Brittany Snyder, a Level 6 skater,
placed first in the freestyle and fourth in the light entertainment
spotlight.
Level 5 skater, Jennifer Garcia, finished
first in the footwork competition, second in the light entertainment
spotlight and third in both the freestyle and solo competitions.
Level 4 Amanda Malsonado placed second in
the character spotlight, fourth in footwork and fifth in the freestyle.
Another Level 4 skater, Kimberly Mobley, was third in the light
entertainment spotlight, fourth in footwork and sixth in the freestyle.
Level 3 Brittany Wardlaw and Julianne Young
won the couples’ spotlight, while Young also won the freestyle and solo
competitions. Wardlaw won the character spotlight, placed second in the
solo and fifth in the freestyle.
Level 2 Rikki Harris won the artistic
spotlight, footwork and dramatic spotlight while placing second in the
freestyle and solo.
Robyn Osborne-Quinnette won the freestyle
and footwork at Level 1, while placing second in the light entertainment
spotlight.
The Ice Palace team will be competing in the
Gatlinburg Open in Gatlinburg, Tenn., on Oct. 27.
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