Sargent Sophomore Goes for the Gold
Rachel Ferrucci (SAR’09) and her synchronized skating team took home the gold at the national championships last month.
Rachel Ferrucci’s spring semester has been packed. Besides a demanding school schedule, she practices and competes with an award-winning synchronized skating team. In February, her team, the Lexington-based Haydenettes, took home the gold medal at the U.S. Synchronized Team Skating Championships in Colorado Springs, Colo. Now, just a month later, Ferrucci (SAR’09) and her teammates are heading to Canada for the world competition.
Synchronized skating is a group performance to music that involves skating formations such as circles, lines, blocks, wheels, and intersection, all performed in unison. The Haydenettes, with 16 members ages 14 to 24, have taken home 16 national titles in the senior division. Ferrucci, who is from Connecticut, has wanted to be part of the Haydenettes almost since she started skating at age six. “Being in skating so long, I’ve always known about them,” she says. “When I got to Boston, I wanted to try out for the team because I knew it would be a great opportunity.”
Although Ferrucci began as a solo skater, she enjoys synchronized skating because of its emphasis on team-building. “When you’re out there,” she says, “you know there are 15 other girls going through the same thing you are, and they’re there to support you.”
The Haydenettes leave for the World Synchronized Skating Championships in London, Ontario, this week and hope to be the first U.S. team to garner a medal there. They will perform to music from the movie Last of the Mohicans for their short program, and have selected Atlantis as their theme for the long program.
Ferrucci says she will continue the sport as long as she can. “You can show an emotion in a different way,” she explains. “It’s kind of like an art.”
Brittany Jasnoff can be reached at bjasnoff@bu.edu.