It's not called dancing on ice for nothing.

Figure skating combines grace, agility, concentration and strength. And unlike, say, the waltz or ballet, there's the added element of speed as the skaters perform their intricate routines while zipping down the ice on thin blades of steel.

In front of a scant crowd of onlookers (mostly parents, it seemed), four Cedar Rapids high school girls displayed near-perfection Sunday morning in figure skating championships at the Iowa Games on the rink at the Cedar Rapids Ice Arena.

The fact that there weren't bleachers full of fans to watch them was of no concern. They do what they do for the sheer love of the sport.

"It's the competition that we enjoy," said Kelly Bryant, 15, a sophomore at Cedar Rapids Washington High School, "and the challenge to do your very best."

While the girls, all of them members of the 70-strong Eastern Iowa Figure Skating Club based at the Ice Arena, are each involved in other school activities, it's the individual aspect of the sport that attracts them.

"You're out on the ice all on your own in front of people," said Elaine Manninen, 16, also a Wash soph. "It's not like a team sport. It's all up to you."

And since they're by themselves in the spotlight, according to 17-year-old Xavier senior Caitlin Vester, "You learn to win gracefully, and to lose gracefully."

Perhaps because it isn't highly publicized or widely participated, there's also an uncommon bond that develops among the skaters. Along with their parents, they travel together to a handful of meets throughout the Midwest from fall to spring.

"We're like a family," said 13-year-old Maggie Mischka, a Washington ninth grader. "All of us are really good friends."

They're together most days of the week, early in the morning before school for practice at the Ice Arena. Each say they put in at least eight hours a week on the ice.

Manninen, the most experienced and for now the most accomplished of the local skaters, spends several hours more. For one thing, her mother Suzanne coaches three of the four - Tanya Burgess serves as Bryant's coach - so she tags along.

But "Lanie," as she's called, also does weight training to build up her slight muscles for figure skating's spins, twists, stretches, jumps, dips and all-out bursts of ice-touching velocity.

The girls said they were introduced to the sport after first taking skating lessons as tykes after the Ice Arena was built a little more than a decade ago. Now, Caitlin and Kelly teach learn-to-skate classes.

"It's a lot of fun with the little kids," said Vester, also a member of the Dancer's Edge dance troupe in Hiawatha.

Some of the beginners were there Sunday morning, awaiting their own turn under the lights in pee-wee competition, and watching the big girls strut their stuff in glittery outfits and ever-present smiles.

Menninen and Bryant each took blue ribbons in their skill-level category, while Vester and Mischka were first and second in the same division.

Although it was Bryant in pure white who performed to the music of "The Swan," it was a fitting description for all four girls.

Pretty. Graceful. Soaring with joy.