Skyliners Junior Wins Gold at Mozart Cup

Thursday
After a long day of travel, we woke up on Thursday ready to kick off our time in Austria! Our team ate an early breakfast and then got ready to take on the beautiful town of Salzburg. Being sure to stay covid safe by double masking and avoiding all public interaction, we walked around town for about two hours, getting to see the colorful architecture, beautiful water, amazing mountains, and even take some fun pictures! We loved being able to see Fortress Hohensalzburg or, in other words, “the castle” from almost everywhere in town. After exploring, we went to the rink to have a delicious lunch. Once we finished eating, we hopped on a bus to another rink for unofficial practice. Our team worked hard to perfect our program and have it competition-ready, and we were lucky to meet a few people at the rink who were cheering us on! After finishing our practice, we went back to the rink to have dinner. Many of us had discovered a new love for the pink raspberry water served! After finishing dinner, we went back to the hotel to get some rest. After an exciting day of exploring and practice, we felt energized heading into the competition, ready to put everything into our performances!
– Alessandra

Friday
Soon, the first competition day was upon us! Friday morning brought a new level of excitement to our trip: it was time to compete our short program. An early breakfast gave us the energy we needed to attack the day, and we spent the rest of the morning preparing for official practice. After our hair and makeup were complete, we hopped on the bus to the rink. Warming up alongside teams from around the world was an amazing experience and filled us with even more anticipation for the day. We completed our warmup dance, stretched, and hyped each other up to prepare for the practice. Our OP went smoothly, allowing us to gain a feeling of the competition ice while running through our elements one final time.

Lunch at the rink followed our practice, and we headed back to the hotel to prepare for our competition skate. Hairspray, eyeshadow, and laughter filled our hotel rooms as each skater made sure their teammates looked their best. Piling our skate bags onto the bus, the team made our way back to the rink to warm up. Running through our program off the ice brought us into our competition mindset, and we left the tent feeling focused and ready to tackle our first competition skate. Taking the ice on the international stage was an opportunity unlike any other! For the majority of the team, this was our first international competition experience. The honor of representing not just Skyliners, but the United States of America, sunk in as the crowd chanted “USA!”. We could feel the support from the entire rink, not just from audience members of our own country. Incorporating this energy into our short program made this skate one of my favorites.

We ended the night back at the hotel, feeling ecstatic after winning the short program at our first international competition. Ice cream made the night even sweeter as we prepared to get a good night’s sleep for the next day!
– Alana

Saturday
We woke up well-rested and ready for the day ahead of us! We all headed down to eat breakfast, all of us plating our food the same way because we all believe it has some good luck powers. After retreating to our rooms to get ready for official practice, we boarded the bus to the arena. In the warm-up area, we had a quick exchange with Hockettes Junior and cheered each other on before practice. We also had an impromptu dance party with Team Darlings, one of the senior teams from the Czech Republic. We had a great official practice, ate lunch at the arena, and headed back to the hotel for some downtime before getting ready. We took this time to look over our OP videos and see what we could improve on for the competition. Once we were all ready to go, we headed back to the rink for our warm-up, playing our traditional bus ride songs on the way. After getting ready, we ended our warm-up by singing “Defying Gravity,” a SkyJunior tradition. We jammed out to get hyped up in the locker room, and prepared to take the ice. We aimed to feel fierce and aggressive in our long, and all of our confidence went through the roof when we saw Hockettes standing on the side cheering us on. It’s so amazing to have all of the US teams supporting each other like that! We are proud of our programs and their progress and cannot wait to improve even more at French Cup! The icing on the cake was that we ended the day at the awards ceremony with a total US sweep of the podium! We can’t wait for the next competition!
– Maddie