Montreal’s Les Supremes help usher synchro skating into Olympic Games

Canada had a hand in pushing synchronized figure skating over the finish line to Olympic inclusion.

The coach of one of the most successful synchro teams in the world was asked on short notice by the International Skating Union to put together a team for a demonstration performance in April’s world synchro championships in Salzburg, Austria, in front of International Olympic Committee members.

“They’re like ‘we’re making a pilot project for the IOC, to push and make sure that this time we get in,'” Marilyn Langlois recounted.

Langlois coaches Montreal’s Les Supremes, who have won four world championships in the last five years in a competition that features teams of 16 skaters. Olympic teams will consist of only nine skaters (the event is called “synchro9”) in 2030.

Her own skaters training the traditional 16-team format for the world championship, Langlois had to recruit former athletes to be part of a three-country synchro9 demonstration in Salzburg alongside the United States and Finland.

“We don’t want to use our skaters that are currently training right now because they have a world championship to win, so we’re like ‘OK, I’ve got 10 retired skaters, that are all still in school or working or coaches,'” Langlois said.

“It’s kind of a movie, trying to do something that you don’t know if it’s going to work, but we’re all willing to take a chance because we want our sport to get there.

“It’s been so long that we’ve been trying to get there.”

Synchronized skating was among the events the IOC added this week to the 2030 Winter Olympic Games in France.

Women’s team ski jumping, men’s and women’s team sprints in speedskating and mixed-gender ski cross were also among the additions.

Nordic combined — cross-country skiing and ski jumping — was dropped after over a century of male-only Olympic competition. Canada hasn’t had a Nordic combined Olympic entrant since 2010.

The IOC trumpeted that 2030 will be the first gender-equal Winter Games.

There’s been an annual synchro skating world championships for over a quarter-century, but the IOC’s affinity for compact, broadcast-friendly sports meant an alteration in the sport’s look and format for 2030.

Smaller teams of nine will perform in a knockout structure of head-to-head battles, elimination rounds and themed performances instead of the traditional single grade from judges for a performance.

Synchro9 has yet to be contested. It will be part of the 2028 Youth Winter Olympic Games in Italy as a female-only event with the possibility of incorporating men for 2030. Men do participate in the sport.

“Right now, there’s no competition for synchro9. It’s a very new format,” Langlois said.

“Some will say it’s not what we know about synchro, but we have to be open-minded that sometimes change is good.

“Discovering it made me really love it. We were all skeptical because we love bigger shapes and we feel that we can create more designs maybe with more skaters. But there is on the other side, with nine skaters, there’s other stuff that you can really showcase. With 16, it’s a little harder because of the size of the ice rink.”

It will be up to Skate Canada how national synchro9 teams will be assembled, Langlois pointed out.

Chief sport officer Shae Zukiwsky was unavailable for comment Wednesday, but the governing body of figure skating said in a statement “this historic milestone marks a new era for synchronized skating and for the growth of figure skating worldwide.

“The IOC’s decision also represents an important step toward achieving gender parity at the Olympic Winter Games and we look forward to seeing synchronized skating make its long-awaited Olympic debut.”

Freeriding, in which skiers and snowboarders traverse off-piste routes down a mountain, a biathlon mixed-gender relay, and a mixed gender snowboard parallel race were also on the slate of new events for 2030.

Ice sports will be in Lyon with the exception of speedskating, which will be outside of the host country in Heerenveen, the Netherlands.

Canada boasts a strong history in speedskating’s team sprints with men and women winning back-to-back world championships in 2023 and 2024. The women were silver medallists last year.

Two teams of three skaters start on opposite sides of the oval with each skater leading for one lap before dropping off. The third skater completes the final lap alone to stop the clock at the finish line.

“We’re always out there at world championships and in the World Cups, so it’s exciting. I’m not going to lie because I was not expecting this event to be at the Olympics,” said Beatrice Lamarche, who along with Brooklyn McDougall and Ivanie Blondin took 2025 world championship silver in Hamar, Norway.

“It’ll probably change some things for some athletes and some countries as well. I’m sure people will take this more seriously, that’s for sure.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 8, 2026.

Donna Spencer, The Canadian Press