Sunrise-1 will try to qualify for the 2018 Junior World Championships in Zagreb. /Credits: Dmitry Ikunin

The national championships of Russia will start on Friday in Yoshkar-Ola. 27 teams will compete in 3 different categories: senior, junior and advanced novice. Senior and junior teams will qualify for the World Championships. Junior and advanced novice teams have already been selected during the first part of the season. Only the 12 best teams received the opportunity to participate in the nationals.

No doubt that the long-awaited event of this 2018 national championships will be the performance of Team Paradise, the senior world champion of the last two years. Every synchro skater is looking forward to discovering it.

But the fans are also waiting for the junior and advance novice categories. As the level is high in these two categories, there will be very exciting fights for the national titles.

As a reminder, in the junior division Team Junost last season lost its title of national champion after long-time leadership but the team won the gold medal at the Junior World Championships in Canada. For its part, Crystal Ice won in 2017 its first national title and was so close to become the junior world champions but lost the title at the very last moment. As well teams Sunrise-1 and Idel will do their best and will try to catch the opportunity to go to World Junior Championship in Croatia next March.

Each of these teams is able to win. The fight will be very thrilling.

In the advanced novices, three teams (Sunrise-2, Junost, and Kazanochka) received 65 points and more during the last weeks for their free programs. These outstanding points showed the extremely high level of the advanced novice division.

To take part in the Nationals, the selection conditions for the novices teams were very strict. Every team had to participate in at least one of the stage of the Russian Cup and be in the Top 3 in this competition. If one team already qualified in one of the stages of the Russian Cup, in the next competition this team was out of the selection. 

Will Sunrise-2 defend their champion title? Or will Junost advanced novice return their champion title after a few years? Or will we have a new Russian champion?

You’ll have news soon on Jura Synchro! Stay tuned!