Editor's note: Part of this story was missing in Friday's edition. The complete story is being reprinted.GENEVA -- Dressed in matching black leotards, about 20 women from Western Michigan University's synchronized skating team glided onto the rink at the Fox Valley Ice Arena on Thursday afternoon. They circled, stopped and struck a pose.
A musical montage from Evita poured from rink-side speakers, and the skaters began to move in perfect unison. Linking their arms, they flowed from one intricate formation to the next with startling speed, whizzing past each other so closely they provoked gasps among spectators.
They spun, they lifted, they flipped. When it was all over, they caught their breath and started their routine again from the top.
This was the last chance they would get to practice before competing in the Midwestern regional championships, which are being held at the Geneva rink today and Saturday.
Joining the ladies from Western Michigan for the weekend competition are almost 150 other synchronized skating teams from around the Midwest. That's about 2,500 skaters in all, representing teams with names ranging from Go Figure and Texas Chilli Peppers to Swan Synch-sation.
"A lot of people don't know about it, but (synchronized skating) is huge," said Debbie Voss, a Geneva mother whose daughter is on the Fox Valley Ice Arena's home team, Ice Elite.
"Figure skating takes a lot of time," requiring countless hours of practice, Voss said. "For a lot of the girls, it's all they do, so team skating gives them some social time. They get to spend time together as a team."
Essentially a cross between ballet and solo figure skating, "synchro" has boomed in popularity. It will be a competition at the 2006 Winter Olympics and is scheduled next year to become an official women's sport in the NCAA.
"It's a tough sport," said Mark Przybylski, the marketing chairman for the Midwestern championships. "These girls are athletes in the truest sense of the world. When they come off the ice, their feet are beat up, everything. It's very competitive."
It's also very expensive. Some parents at the ice rink Thursday said they spent as much as $12,000 each year for their child's lessons, costumes, skates and traveling to competitions.
Teams compete according to their age and skill. Skaters ages 6 to 93 in about a dozen categories will perform at this weekend's championship.
Many are exhibition categories, but in the five categories for teens and college students, the competition is fierce. Only four teams from each category will score enough points to make it to the national competition to be held in March in San Diego.
In preparation for the competition, most teams came to town on Wednesday or Thursday to get extra practice time. But with 150 teams, each one got only 15 minutes on the arena's two rinks for pre-contest practice. Even with such short times, practices ran for about 12 hours on Wednesday and from dawn to after midnight Thursday.
The Teen Introductory squad on the Geneva-based Ice Elite team got practice in early Thursday morning. They said they were definitely ready to face the judges today.
"I'm really excited," said Kristen Hibbard, 13, of Naperville, as she and her friends talked about their sport. "Synchronized skating is a challenge because you have to make sure everyone else is doing the same thing."
Parents say the graceful and fast- paced sport also is fun to watch. "It's not the same watching figure skating on TV," Voss said. "You don't get a feel for how fast they are going or how close they are."
For those interested in watching some excellent adult team skating, organizers of the championship said there also will be a national-level competition at 12:15 p.m. Sunday.
"Those will be some world-class skaters," said publicity chairman Lynn Brown. "And for the $2 ticket, it's a good deal."
For the regional championship, which began Friday and runs from 7:45 a.m. to 10 p.m. today, tickets are $15.
Both events will be at the Fox Valley Ice Arena on Kirk Road north of Fabyan Parkway in Geneva. Complete schedules are available on the Internet at www.2004synchromids.org.
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