What is ice skating?
A: Ice skating is the self-propulsion and gliding of a person across an ice
surface, using metal-bladed ice skates.
Why do people skate?
A: Recreation (fun),
exercise, competitive sports, and commuting.
Ice skating may be performed on what?
A: Naturally frozen bodies of water, such as ponds, lakes, canals, and
rivers, and on man-made ice surfaces both indoors and outdoors.
Natural ice surfaces used by skaters can accommodate a
variety of winter sports which generally require an enclosed area but are
also used by skaters who need what?
A: Ice tracks and trails for distance skating and
speed skating.
Man-made ice surfaces include what?
A: Ice rinks, ice hockey rinks, bandy fields, ice tracks required for the
sport of ice cross downhill, and arenas.
Ice hockey, bandy, rinkball, and ringette, are what?
A: Team sports played with, respectively, a flat sliding puck, a ball, and a
rubber ring.
Synchronized skating is a unique what?
A: Artistic team sport derived from figure skating.
Figure skating, ice cross downhill, speed skating, and
barrel jumping, are among what?
A: The sporting disciplines for individuals.
Research suggests that the earliest ice skating
happened where?
A: In southern Finland more than 4,000 years ago.
Why was this done?
A: To save energy during winter journeys.
When did true skating emerge?
A: When a steel blade with sharpened edges was used.
Skates now cut into the ice instead of what?
A: Gliding on top of it.
When did the Dutch add edges to ice skates?
A: In the 13th or 14th century.
The fundamental construction of modern ice skates has
stayed largely the same since then, although differing greatly in what?
A: The details, particularly in the method of binding and the shape and
construction of the steel blades.
In the Netherlands, ice skating was considered proper
for all classes of people, as shown in what?
A: Many pictures from Dutch Golden Age painters.
Ice skating was also practiced in China during what
dynasty?
A: The Song dynasty and became popular among the ruling family of the Qing
dynasty.
Emperor Rudolf II of the Holy Roman Empire enjoyed ice
skating so much, that he did what?
A: He had a large ice carnival constructed in his court in order to
popularize the sport.
Who brought ice skating to Paris?
A: King Louis XVI of France during his reign.
Queen Victoria became acquainted with her future
husband, Prince Albert, through what?
A: A series of ice-skating trips.
Albert continued to skate after their marriage and on
falling through the ice was once rescued by whom?
A: Victoria and a lady in waiting from a stretch of water in the grounds of
Buckingham Palace.
On Saturday 1 February 1879, a number of professional ice skaters from Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire met in the Guildhall, Cambridge, to set up what?
A: The National Skating Association, the first national ice skating body in the world.
Where was the first instructional book concerning ice
skating published?
A: In London in 1772.
The book titled The Art of Figure Skating, written by
whom?
A: A British artillery lieutenant, Robert Jones.
It describes basic figure skating forms such as what?
A: Circles and figure eights.
The book was written solely for men, as women did not
what?
A: Ice skate in the late 18th century.
It was with the publication of this manual that ice
skating split into what two main disciplines?
A: Speed skating and figure skating.
Who was the founder of modern figure skating as it is
known today?
A: Jackson Haines, an American.
He was the first skater to do what?
A: To incorporate ballet and
dance movements into his skating, as opposed to
focusing on tracing patterns on the ice.
Haines also invented what?
A: The sit spin and developed a shorter, curved blade for figure skating
that allowed for easier turns.
He was also the first to wear blades that were what?
A: Permanently attached to the boot.