Shazaday Young has made positive strides competing in a sport not normally associated with Bermuda.

The Bermudian, who lives in Yorkshire with her family, is fast making a name for herself in the sport of synchronised skating as a member of the Ice Sheffield Skating Academy.

She is believed to be the first Bermudian to be involved in the ice-skating discipline.

Synchronised skating is a large and fast-growing discipline of figure skating where between eight and 20 skaters skate on ice as a team, moving as one flowing unit at high speeds while completing difficult footwork.

The sport uses the same judging system as singles, pairs and ice dancing, and is judged primarily on teamwork, precision, speed, difficulty and performance.

Young, 14, was not a fan of skating initially, but ultimately had a change of heart with a little encouragement from her mother, Shirika.

“I didn’t like it at first because it seemed hard,” she said. “But my mom kept encouraging me. She is my biggest supporter: she encourages me to keep striving to be the best in what I do.

“I never knew I would be able to skate like I do from when I started, not being able to even walk in the skates to now doing spirals, little spins and dance routines.”

Young’s mom recalls the early days of her daughter’s career.

“Shazaday took an interest in learning how to ice-skate after going a few times for fun-skate but couldn’t do it,” she said.

“She started skating at the National Ice Skating Association, passing levels 1-9 and getting bronze, silver, gold in dance and freeskate.

“After, she decided to go for her higher NISA levels while giving synchro-skating a try, which she is doing.”

Young and her Ice Sheffield Synchronised team-mates greatly impressed at last month’s British Championships in Nottingham, where they placed fifth before going one better with a fourth-place finish at this month’s Trophy D’ecosse and Scottish Championships in Dumfries.

The Westfield Sports College student will get another opportunity to showcase her talent when she competes next week in Bradford, where her expectations are high.

“I want to get higher scores and go for a medal this time,” Young said. “I get nervous before I perform. But it goes away once I’m on the ice and my routine has started.”

Young is also scheduled to compete at next month’s Fourth Kempen Trophy in Belgium.

“I love travelling to different European countries to compete for the medals,” Young added. “I hope to win gold medals and maybe compete at the Olympics one day.”