Congratulations to Nottingham Academy Ransom Road Campus pupil and Team Icicles GB member - Bethany Frisby. Nottingham Synchronized Skating Junior Team, The Icicles, competed in the first competition of the season last weekend. The I International Synchronized Skating Competition took place in Grenada, Spain. They performed two routines and scored an impressive 93.78 total score, which saw them take gold, an excellent start to the season.

The Icicles all aged 13-18 are current reigning British Champions and competing internationally. The team almost didn’t make it to the Grenada competition after they received devastating news that Monarch Airline had gone into administration and cancelled the girl’s flights. A Just Giving page was set up and fundraising activities took place to help raise funds for new tickets. The Grenada competition is a vital step towards the World Championships taking place in Sweden next April.

Everyone at Nottingham Academy is very proud of Bethany’s achievements. At age 7 Bethany joined a school skating programme with Sycamore Primary, as many pupils across Nottingham do, during this time she successfully gained a place on the Skate UK scholarship programme and was subsequently spotted by a synchronized skating coach. Since then Bethany has progressed to competition level and has been on the winning British Championship Team for her age group for the last 5 years.

Bethany trains for a minimum of 5 days per week, often before and after a full school day, and weekends can be a gruelling 12 hours of rehearsals. As a member of The Icicles she has a diet plan and a schedule for training on and off the ice, Bethany balances this with homework and studying and continues to make great progress in all subjects.  

Synchronized Skating is one of the fastest-growing ice sports in the world with over 22 countries from 5 continents competing at the international and world level, it is not yet an Olympic sport, but this is under review and Bethany has dreams of competing at the Winter Olympics in 2022.

Nottingham Academy congratulates Bethany and her team mates at Team Icicles GB on an amazing start to the season and we wish all the best of luck with the rest of the year!