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In 1983, Canada held its first sanctioned national precision skating championships. The first U.S. Figure Skating Association (USFSA) national precision championships soon followed in 1984. The sport grew wildly, particularly along the U.S.-Canadian border, and soon spread overseas. By 1987, Japan and Australia had become the first non-North American countries participating in international precision skating competitions.
Precision team skating received the ISU's official recognition as a discipline of figure skating in 1994, and that same year, the ISU began sanctioning international competitions, with fifteen countries participating. In 1996 the first ISU World Precision Challenge Cup was held in Boston, Massachusetts.
In 1998, the ISU adopted a more internationally understood term, "synchronized skating," as the official name of the sport. The very first World Synchronized Skating Championships were held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 2000, with twenty-one teams from seventeen countries competing. Moves in the Field became a requirement for U.S. synchro teams as of the 2003-2004 competitive season. In 2007, the Miami University Synchronized Skating team became the first U.S. team to win a medal at the World Championships.
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Synchronized Teams in Action
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The Oxford Skating Society in England practiced "combined figure skating" in groups of up to twelve skaters as early as 1838. The sport as we know it today began in 1954 with the formation of the first true "precision skating team" in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Throughout the 1960's, teams began forming in Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, Ontario, and Quebec. It wasn't long before the first local precision competitions were held, soon followed by the first international competition in 1976 between U.S. and Canadian teams.
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