It's the dawn of a new day in figure skating.
 
Synchronized skating, to be more specific, with the debut of the senior elite 12 division.
 
Traditionally, synchro teams are comprised of 16 skaters. In senior elite 12, the name speaks for itself – each team has 12 skaters. It's widely accepted that the senior elite 12 division is synchronized skating's best opportunity to make it onto the Olympic program.
 
"I always lead with, 'This is how we're getting into the Olympics,' so that more people can understand what it is," said 22-year-old Madelyne Yu of Hayden Select, the senior elite 12 team out of Hayden Synchronized Skating in Lexington, Massachusetts. "Because everybody knows what skating is. Everybody knows what singles, pairs and dance is because they see it at the Olympics. That's the No. 1 question that I get when I tell them that I'm a figure skater. They're like, 'Oh, will we see you in the Olympics?' And I always lead with, 'Well, hopefully.'"
 
Hayden Select is blazing the senior elite 12 trail not just in the United States, but throughout the world. They were the senior first elite 12 team in the United States – they've since been joined by the Crystallettes, previously a senior team based in Michigan – and won the 2022 French Cup, the first international senior elite 12 exhibition.
 
"Not going to lie, it was pretty cool," laughed 21-year-old Mikayla Sagle of winning the first-ever elite 12 international gold medal. "The odds were really stacked against us to even get there (because of COVID), and we got there. We trained so hard and we were really excited just to be there and to skate, so then to come out on top, it was just awesome. It was really, really cool, and it felt good. It felt like we had kind of put some respect on Hayden Select and on the elite 12."
 
Starting a completely new division in the sport has been a unique challenge for the Hayden Select team. Twelve skaters don't form a perfect square like 16 do, so coach Lee Chandler and choreographer Saga Krantz have experimented with new shapes and ways to get their skaters to fill the ice. But it's also never been judged before, so there's been dialogue back and forth about what's to be expected with 12 skaters versus 16.
 
Yu says part of the victory at French Cup last year was getting to help define those standards.
 
"It took a second for it to really hit that we were the first ones to do this," Yu said. "It wasn't a right away, 'Oh my gosh.' Yes, it was very cool, but the weight of what we had done hadn't really hit until later on, when I was like, 'Wow, we really did that. We helped form and create a brand new level, and talk to judges.' They still don't really know how they're going to judge the elite 12. There's still a lot of conversation about that, because it can't be judged or looked at or watched the same as a normal senior 16 team. So it's just like, we did that. We helped create this level that will hopefully go on for many, many years to come. We've opened the door in this opportunity for so many other athletes. Even if it's not us, if it's not me who goes to the Olympics, just knowing that I was able to play a part in whoever does get sent is just so amazing. It was very cool. We did it. We did that."
 
The Hayden Select roster was first put together in April of 2021, only competing at French Cup in that first partial season. This 2022-23 season is the first official season for the senior elite 12 division, and they've already gotten to double last year's competitive output. In November, they competed against the Crystallettes in Massachusetts, and followed that up with silver at the Mozart Cup in Salzburg, Austria.
 
They head back to French Cup on Feb. 3-4.
 
While all the skaters on Hayden Select are seasoned veterans, Sagle says they all joined the team on an even playing field: with zero senior elite 12 experience.
 
"We all came in from different teams and different points in our synchro career, but there was no team structure," Sagle said. "We got to create it. We got to cultivate it together. And I really feel like this is one of the closest teams I've ever been on, last year and this year, because we came in and we were like, 'Okay, we know what we want to do, but we don't really know how to do it. This is new for all of us.' It was just a collective learning experience, which was really cool and really different, I think, from any team I've been on."
 
Last year, senior elite 12 teams only had free programs. This year, not only are there more teams popping up around the world, they're also skating both short and free programs.
 
One small step for senior elite 12, one giant leap for synchronized skating.
 
Hayden Select is skating to "New World Coming" by Nina Simone for their free skate. It leans more into a modern dance style, different than a typical synchro program thanks to its organic nature.
 
"It starts like we're down in the dumps. We're stuck in a hole, can't really get out," Yu said. "And then as the story goes on, you realize that, 'Hey look, there's a glimmer of hope in the future. If I just get up and keep going, fighting through whatever it is that may overcome us, that it's going to be worth it when you get to the end.'"
 
If you think that sounds very fitting for the situation, you are correct.
 
"It kind of portrays more of our goals as a team as getting synchro to the Olympics, starting from literally nothing to being like, 'Oh hey, there's an idea. There's this goal that we could potentially reach. We just have to get there,'" Yu said. "But obviously, it's not that easy. You have to overcome so many things, so many obstacles, things that are thrown in your way that you didn't even know were going to be there. But that just makes the journey so much sweeter once you actually get there."