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| Synchro Girl |
| Published on September 07, 2009 |  
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Maggie Maier
September 7, 2009
Article & Photos by J. Barry Mittan
 Synchronized skating or synchro, formerly known as precision skating, is the fastest growing discipline within the skating community. In synchro, teams of skaters compete against one another as they form intricate patterns on the ice. In countries such as Finland and Sweden, synchro is more popular than traditional figure skating or ice dancing.
Maggie Maier, who will be 16 in October, is a typical synchro girl. "I like synchro best because of the team aspect," she said. "We have a close group of girls and it's a lot of fun. Coming together as a team is a really unique experience and the best feeling ever."
"We have a lot of fun going to the competitions with the other teams from our rink," Maier noted. "It's great having other teams to cheer for us. We all have our own cheers."
"When you get the elements just right, you can really wow the crowd," she added. "We did death spirals in isolation last year in our free program and that was really cool. Ben Okolski helped us with them."
Maier started skating when she was five. "My Grandma lives on a river and when it was frozen, we went on it to skate," Maier remembered. "I enjoyed it so much that I asked my Mom for lessons."
"I'm testing novice freestyle now and I'm doing my last pre-gold dances," she added. "I love doing the footwork in dance and I want to start on my gold dances. It's fun learning all the differences between dance, freestyle and synchro, but I'm trying to focus on synchro because I love it."
She started doing synchro when she was nine. "There was a synchro class after my Learn to Skate class," Maier noted, "so I begged my Dad to let me try it."
"I had the best time working with a team, so I went to tryouts and made the juvenile team for the Hockettes in 2002-03," she continued. "I moved up to intermediate in 2005-06 and made it to Nationals for the first time. That was an amazing experience."
"I made the novice team the next season," Maier said. "That was great because we made Nationals again and I got to see out junior team win. I really looked up to those girls and was dying to be on the junior team."
"I finally made the junior team in 2007-08," Maier stated. "I kind of crossed between the novice and junior teams that season, but I skated in every long program in juniors. I got to see how things worked and really improved a lot that year."
"Last season, I skated all the time with the junior team," she said. "We made Nationals and were top ten, but we want to get back up to the top again."
"We don't have a senior team at our rink," Maier explained. "We're just hoping to have a strong junior team. Most of the girls stay in juniors through high school and then go on to skate with collegiate teams. I'd like to do that too."
She's a junior at Pioneer High School this year. "I enjoy science, but I'm not sure what I want to study in college," she said. "I'm focusing on doing well on all the standardized tests this year. Skating has helped me with school because you learn so much about discipline and hard work."
Maier trains hard for her sport. "I train by myself six days a week," she noted. "Our team practices three times a week at night for two hours. I do ballet and Pilates and have off ice workouts with the team."
"We've been working a lot off ice on our programs for this season," Maier said. "We're doing 'Will You Be There' by Michael Jackson for the short and a medieval theme for the long with King Henry and all of his pretty wives. It's pretty intense."
Erin Donovan coaches the Hockettes, while Brandon Forsyth coaches Maier individually. "Shannon's first year as coach was my first year," Maier noted.
"Maggie is the hardest working and most positive student I have," Forsyth noted. "She's a great representative for the team and the club."
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