Team Unique skated a short program full of energy to the Billie Eilish's song "Bad Guy". (Credits: Roy NG Photography - 2019)

Held in the Finnish city of Espoo, the Finlandia Trophy 2019 was the very first competition for the senior teams to show their new short programs. The new 2019/20 season started with a fierce battle to the top spots.

Winners of this first international event, the Russian Team Paradise is delighted with their performance in Finland.

"I’m very happy with the result and the girls' skating. It was the first start of the season where we have demonstrated our new short program. And of course, we were a little bit nervous about how the judges and the audience will accept our new program. Besides we had four new young skaters in the team. It was a serious test for them! I’m happy that they passed the test successfully. It is not easy at all to compete against very famous and strong rivals. For today we did it - we won first place! And we’ll try to skate every time better and better!", head coach Irina Yakovleva said after the competition.

Why did you choose Tango?

"Because I like Tango very much. Tango is a passion, temptation, love, intricated movements, and huge emotions. It’s life! It is a difficult task to perform it on the ice, but we decided to try.  In any case, it’s very hard but very interesting work," she added.

Placed second, Helsinki Rockettes skated a confident short program called "Alarm". After their gold medal won in Shanghai last week, the skaters seemed in shape on the ice."We did a good job with the girls tonight. I think that we are in a good place with both programs so we were waiting to perform the short to the audience. But naturally, there is still work to do cause it's so early in the season. We enjoyed skating and it was nice to get the first feedback from this program from the judges and panel and also nice to be back in Finlandia Trophy with the top teams," Helsinki Rockettes's captain Nona Vihma commented.

Team Unique delivered also a clean program in Espoo. "We had a strong and confident performance and we enjoyed today's skate very much. The first competition is always a good place to see where we are now and this is a good position to continue our hard work," the captains explained. Team Unique, bronze medalists, has been once again being distinguished by its energetic skate and amazing dance skills.

With two unfortunate falls and a few mistakes, Marigold IceUnity ranked fourth at Finlandia Trophy. But the Vice-World Champions 2019, of course, don't give up. "It felt great to perform our new short program that we are very proud of. We certainly didn’t reach our full potential today and we know we can do so much better. We’re going to continue working hard with both of our programs and show you next time also our new gorgeous free program!", MIU's team captain Camilla Sundgren said.

For the team Lumineers, this first event was an opportunity to get the first feedback. "We really enjoyed skating today in front of an amazing home audience. Now we know that we need to focus more on our technical levels during the upcoming weeks. All in all, we are happy to start the competition season!", Lumineers noted. By the way, the team was the only one to wear colorful costumes (blue). The other teams have all chosen a predominantly black suit but which differ by its shape.

Read here the recap of the competition!