Team Unique is a senior-level synchronized skating team from

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bo ...

, representing the figure skating club Helsingfors Skridskoklubb (HSK). Established in 1993 and competing at the senior level since 1996, Team Unique are the 2013

world champions A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game, ...

, 2009 world silver medalists and the 2013 and 2016 Finnish champions. Currently, they are ranked seventh in the world by the

International Skating Union The International Skating Union (ISU) is the international governing body for competitive ice skating disciplines, including figure skating, synchronized skating, speed skating, and short track speed skating. It was founded in Scheveningen ...

. The team's home club, HSK, is also the home club to the junior team Team Mystique.

History

Team Unique were established in 1993 and have competed at the senior level since 1996. Until the 2008–09 season, they stood out from the other Finnish top senior teams by having a few male skaters. Head-coached by Mirjami Penttinen since 2000, the team have a long history from the early 2000s of placing third behind Marigold IceUnity and Rockettes at the two Finnish Championships Qualifiers and Finnish Championships. By placing second or first at the national competitions and so beating Rockettes, Team Unique qualified as Team Finland 2 to the

World Championships A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game, ...

in 2002, 2003 and

2007 File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple's first iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto ...

, placing sixth, fourth and fifth, respectively, and in

2009 File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; 2009 Iran ...

, earning silver. The 2012–13 season was, however, historical for the team in terms of competition results – before winning the 2013

, they won

Finlandia Trophy The Finlandia Trophy is a senior-level international figure skating competition. Since 1995, it is held annually in Finland in Greater Helsinki region, including Helsinki, Vantaa, and Espoo. It became part of the ISU Challenger Series in the 2014� ...

, the Cup of Berlin, the French Cup, the Second Finnish Championships Qualifier and the Finnish Championships. Team Unique's success continued abroad through the 2013–14 season as they won

and Leon Lurje Trophy and took their fourth straight victory at the French Cup. However, they placed second at both the national Qualifiers and third at the Finnish Championships, and consequently, did not qualify for the 2014 World Championships, under the season's coefficients on the three national competitions.

Programs

Competition results (1998–2008)

Competition results (2008–20)

Programs

Media appearances

Team Unique performed on the season one of the Finnish ''

Dancing on Ice ''Dancing on Ice'' is a British television series presented by Phillip Schofield alongside Holly Willoughby from 2006 to 2011, who then returned in 2018, and Christine Bleakley from 2012 to 2014. The series features celebrities and their pr ...

'' on 2 November 2013. They also appeared as background skaters in the December 2013 music video for " Selvästi päihtynyt" by Finnish pop singer

Jenni Vartiainen Jenni is a feminine given name, sometimes a modern diminutive or short form of Jennifer. The etymology is actually that of a diminutive of Jane, however. A separate name, with the same spelling, serves as a Finnish language diminutive of Johan ...

References

External links

Official website of Team Unique
{{Finnish champions in synchronized skating Senior synchronized skating teams Sports teams in Finland Figure skating in Finland Sports clubs in Helsinki World Synchronized Skating Championships medalists 1993 establishments in Finland