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Most figure skating fans think of the sport as something for individual athletes or perhaps in pairs. New Canaan's Ashley Mulhern will tell you differently. As a member of the Skyliners synchronized skating team, she enjoys working with a unit.
"Everything we do is challenging,'' says the New Canaan High School senior. "The accomplishments and what we achieve are amazing."
Mulhern's team will skate in perhaps its most important competition of the season this week. The Skyliners are a tri-state team that includes girls from Fairfield County, Westchester County in New York and New Jersey. The 20-member team will compete in Fond du Lac, Wis., on Jan. 7 in the Foot of the Lake World Junior Team selection competition. The Skyliners won second place last year and then placed fifth in the Junior World Challenge Cup in Sweden. The top two teams from this week's competition advance to the Junior World Challenge Cup in Switzerland. Ashley will also head to Milan, Italy, in February for another international competition.
"In synchronized skating, you have to work as a team,'' Ashley says. "Your friends become like your sisters because you spend so much time together. When you go to compete, it's great because you know your entire team is behind you."
Sixteen of the team's 20 girls skate during a competition as the members skate in tight precision. Darien girls Ashley and Lauren Snow as well as Brooke Abbott and Mairead Brock of Cos Cob also skate with the Skyliners. The team competes in short and long programs, and the teams are judged on such details as skating skills, choreography and interpretation. Synchronized skating is one of the nation's fastest-growing segments of the sport, and organizers are hopeful it will be included in the Winter Olympics someday.
Mulhern started skating at age 4 when a relative took her to a rink near her family's California home. When they moved to New Canaan, she took group lessons at Stamford Twin Rinks. She picked up synchronized skating shortly afterward and "ended up falling in love with it."
She plans to attend Miami University in Ohio, one of the few colleges with a synchronized skating team, and plans to try out for the squad. She has also been selected one of the sport's ambassadors in promoting it to younger girls. The United States Figure Skating Association chose 10 skaters from around the nation for its DREAM Program determination, responsibility, education, achievement and motivation team to encourage younger athletes to try the sport. There could not be a better representative. Ashley is living proof that skating dreams do come true.
"You never know how far it's going take you,'' Ashley says. "I hope little girls every where can have the same experience that I've had with it."
Know an athlete in a sport that gets little attention? We'd love to hear about them! Contact Tom Renner at trenner@mainstreetconnect.us.
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