Hamilton / Canada

The ISU World Synchronized Skating Championships 2015 will be held in Hamilton, Canada, on April 10 and 11. Canada hosts the ISU World Synchronized Skating Championships for the third time. The ISU introduced the ISU World Synchronized Skating Championships in 2000 and the first took place in Minneapolis, USA. The first ISU World Junior Synchronized Skating Championships was held in Helsinki, Finland, in 2013.

25 teams from 20 ISU members have been entered for the ISU World Synchronized Championship 2015.
A team consists of 16 skaters (plus up to four alternates). The athletes on the ice should move in one flowing unit at high speed and perform a number of elements such as steps, blocks, wheels, moves in the field and lifts as well as isolated moves.

The Short Program consists of five required elements: pivoting element, traveling element, intersection, moves and no hold element (executed in a block configuration including a step sequence feature).
The Free Skating Program contains seven required elements (group lift, two different intersection elements, moves, no hold element, pivoting element Block and travelling element wheel) plus three elements that can be chosen from three different groups.

Finland, Sweden, Canada and the USA are the leading ISU members in Synchronized Skating. Finland has claimed a total of 19 medals in the ISU World Synchronized Skating Championship so far, including eight gold medals. Sweden ranks second with 11 medals (six gold), while Canada has ten medals (one gold) and the USA collected five medals since the inaugural World Championships in 2000.

The defending champions Marigold Ice Unity (Finland 1) are back and aim for a second consecutive title, but competition should be tough. 2014 silver medalists Nexxice (Canada 1) want to take the gold home to Canada in front of their enthusiastic home crowd. The Rockettes (Finland 2) were bronze medalists in 2014 and want to challenge again.

Other medal contenders include Paradise (Russia 1) who finished fourth a year ago, former World Champions Team Surprise (Sweden 1) who hope return to the podium after missing it the past two years as well as four-time World bronze medalists Haydenettes (USA 1).

There are also teams from Australia, Belgium, Croatia, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Mexico, Spain, Switzerland and Turkey competing.

A live stream will be available on the ISU Skating Channel. This service will not be available in Canada and USA. For schedules on these specific territories please go to CBC and IceNetwork respectively.

The schedule of the ISU World Synchronized Skating Championships 2015 is as follows:
Friday, April 10: Short Program
Saturday, April 11: Free Skating