Present Day
At the senior level, the top positions at the World Championships have been overwhelmingly dominated by Sweden and Finland – as of 2000, the Swedish Team Surprise has won the competition six times (2000, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2012) placing in the top three every year except 2010 and 2011, the Finnish Marigold IceUnity three times (2002, 2004, 2006), the Finnish Rockettes three times (2008, 2010, 2011) and the Canadian NEXXICE once in 2009. Other top teams include the United States' Haydenettes and Miami University, the Finnish Team Unique, and Canadian teams black ice (discontinued) and Les Suprêmes.
Although not currently an Olympic sport, fans and participants of this fast-growing discipline have begun to strive for recognition by the rest of the skating and athletic world. In 2007 synchronized skating took one step closer to Olympic contention when it was selected to be part of the Universiade or World University Games as a demonstration sport. Countries from around the world competed in Turin, Italy with Sweden, Finland, and Russia coming out on top.
Synchronized skating has been covered by Skating magazine since the sport's inception. It is a varsity sport at several colleges such as Miami University (and many more are developing club-level collegiate teams without varsity status such as the team at UMass Amherst), and has already been reviewed for Olympic eligibility. Miami University has been a trailblazer in collegiate synchronized skating, fielding the first completely funded varsity synchronized skating program in the United States, as well as their coach Vicki Korn working towards gaining "synchro" NCAA status in the United States.
Read more about this topic: Synchronized Skating
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