Northern Stars top the podium for the first time

Northern Stars won the gold medal at the Trophy D’Ecosse 2020. Held in Dumfries, the 3-day international competition is now in it’s 11th year and hosted 44 teams from around the world. Despite winning several silver and bronze medals, the win marks the first time in the team’s history that we have topped the podium.

The Trophy D’Ecosse is a firm favourite in our competition calendar, and stands out for its thoughtful organisation and incredibly friendly atmosphere. The team also rent a house to stay together for the weekend, and always enjoy exploring the the area around Dumfries and eating meals together.

Sadly, Storm Ciara hit on the Saturday night to cause havoc in Dumfries – the river burst its banks, and the incredibly strong winds destroyed the large marquee at the rink which housed the warmup and preparation areas, closing the car park and access road.

With a few last minute adjustments, the Adult and Intermediate categories still went ahead on the Sunday, even running to the same timetable. The staff at the rink and event organisers were fantastic and worked incredibly hard in awful weather to make the event a success and enjoyable for all the teams and spectators.

After relocating our warmup to our team lounge, we headed to the rink for our 10-minute practice session. These sessions are viewed by the technical specialists to time the music and review the programs. Our music is played twice so allow us to adjust to the rink and get into performance mode for the main event later in the day. 

After two solid but imperfect runs, we headed back to the house for lunch, hair, make-up, and individual feedback from our coach. After a very tight turnaround, we headed back to the ice for the afternoon competition.

Skating third, we took to the ice for our warmup block and began the routine full of confidence. We had worked incredibly hard in the few weeks since the British Championships to add in extra levels of difficulty as well as added performance highlights, but the team had everything under control as they went seamlessly from one element to the next.

We were incredibly pleased to beat our score from the British and gain a new season’s best which took us into first place, and we then took to the stands to watch the rest of the competition and see where we ended up.

As the competition drew to a close, we saw that we had held our lead and finished in the Gold position – there were more than a few tears among the team – it’s always a privilege to win a medal of any colour, but this is the first time the team has taken gold in almost 10 years of competing. The years of hard work finally paid off!

The end result was incredibly tight, here’s how the podium looked:

1 – Northern Stars (Hull) – 25.67

2 – Bladerunners (Altrincham) – 25.45

3 – Starlight Tornado (Stirling) – 23.12

As champions, we were presented with gold medals for the whole team, and a trophy which, after spending a little time with each skater, will be put on show in a trophy cabinet at the Hull Arena.

The competition was unforgettable in so many ways, but as they say, no rest for the wicked, as we’re back in training for the Steel City Trophy in Sheffield in March.

You can watch our gold medal winning performance here: