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Madison Burgess
Two women are about to become Finland's first ever same-sex ice dancing team following a huge rule change by the country's skating federation.
Emma Aalto, 19 from Finland, and Millie Colling, 20, from England have changed sporting history and will now be able to compete together in Finnish domestic competitions.
The decision came after the duo prompted the national skating federation to revise its rulebook earlier this year by submitting a request to skate together.
The federation will now refer to ice dancers as 'Skater A' and 'Skater B' rather than 'man' and 'woman,' making for a pretty important landmark change.
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Speaking of their triumph, Colling told Reuters: "Now we are allowed to compete in domestic events in Finland... We're the first and only junior level team to do that."
Finland is following in the footsteps of Canada, who eliminated gender requirements for national-level ice dance teams back in 2022.
And Aalto and Colling hope the international skating community will soon join the growing movement for greater inclusivity in sport.
Colling added: "We hope that maybe change will happen just gradually, maybe," while Alto agreed: "We have dreams."
The duo met while skating solo and quickly became good friends. Aalto had previously skated with male partners but was struggling to find a new one.
This is due to a lack of male ice dancers compared to women, making it difficult for everyone to find a partner.
She explained: "For one man, there's like, I don't know, three hundred women wanting to skate with that man. And there is this power imbalance.
"And it's not only your skills as a skater that matter, it's also your height, weight, appearance, and geographics where you live."
In the sport, Colling outlined that there 'isn't a huge physical advantage to being a man' as it focuses more on music and precise footwork rather than more acrobatic elements, lifts and throws, which are the some of the main features of pairs skating.
The pair were first inspired by former Olympic ice dancers Madison Hubbell and Gabriella Papadakis, who performed together at a gala to advocate the acceptance of same-sex partnerships in competitive figure skating.
Hubbell and Papadakis are world-renowned skaters who are using their retirement to push for same-sex skating pairs to be permitted in major competitions.
And now, Aalto and Colling are joining them in doing the same.
Colling said: "I was like, oh, this is amazing. I hoped one day maybe this will be possible."
In an Instagram post sharing their happy news, the duo wrote: "A season and a half ago, we were sat talking very very very excitedly about @gabriellapapadakis's videos skating with Madison Hubbell, and lamenting the fact that it wasn’t a possibility in Finland.
"Inspired by that, Emma asked me for a tryout in May last year. It was the most fun either of us had had on ice and felt so right for us, and we decided that come what may, we wanted to skate together."
They added: "Skating together is obviously wonderful, but this is really important to us on a bigger scale as well. Firstly, there is no real reason why same-gender teams couldn’t be more common, and it’s important to us to prove that to everyone who sees us skate.
"Ice dance also has quite a narrow expectation of what it ”should” look like, something that needs to be challenged in order for the sport to evolve.
"We also want to prove to younger skaters that they don’t have to conform to traditional ice dance gender roles to be a beautiful and valid skater. Skaters should be allowed to tell all kinds of stories on the ice, and express themselves however they want. Let’s make that a reality!"