Do you know ... all about Ice Skating?

If not, then you’d better get your skates on and figure out what the sport is all about!

The story of ice skating begins in Scandinavia, 3,000 years ago. This is where the first skates are believed to have been made.

In the Netherlands, people wore skates to travel across frozen canals in the winter. So ice skates had practical uses before they were used in sport.

Figure skating began in Holland in the 1600s, but only the rich could afford to take part in the sport.

Figure Skating is like dancing on ice. Competitors skate to music as they turn, jump and perform amazing spins.

In singles figure skating, competitors perform alone. In pairs, a couple performs - a man and a woman.

The difference in style between the two is the lifts in the pairs competition. The man often lifts the woman above his head!

In figure skating, men must wear trousers and women must wear skirts.

The judges score the competitions with a complicated marking system. Marks go up by 0.1, starting from 1.0 to 6.0, so 6.0 is the highest score a figure skater can get.

Great Britain has won five Olympic gold medals for figure skating.

Modern skates are made of stiff leather to help support the skater’s ankle. They are made with wide, padded tongues to give the skater more movement. The laces are always tied tightly for total control. The height of the skater’s heel helps the skater to push their body forward and to make quick turns. The blade on the bottom of an ice skate has a very slight curve. There is a groove in the middle of each blade called a hollow. The edges on either side of the hollow are what touch the ice. There are also teeth cut into the toe of the blade which help the figure skater make jumps and turns.

Speed skating is a bit like track racing, but competitors wear ice skates and race on ice!

Tracks are marked out and skaters can race from 500 metres (short track speed skating) to 10,000 metres!

Speed skaters wear tight suits to reduce friction from the air, called air resistance. This helps them go faster.

In Olympic speed skating, competitors race in pairs and against the clock. The track is oval-shaped and measures 400 metres so skaters have to keep skating around the track until they have covered the correct distance. The first competitor to cross the finish line is the winner!

It is not 100% clear what allows skates to skate on ice. Some scientists believe that, as a skater presses down on the ice with his ice skate, it causes the ice to melt and there is less friction between the blade and the ice, so the skater is able to skate along.

Other scientists believe it is more complicated than that and it is to do with surface melting. One of the important effects of surface melting is friction, which causes enough heat to melt a thin layer of ice and so the ice skate can glide along on a thin film of water on top of the ice.

What are you waiting for?

Get your skates on and get down to your local skating rink!

You must never skate on frozen lakes, rivers or canals as it is extremely dangerous. The ice could crack and you could fall in and drown.