Why Figure Skating?

Canadians love figure skating! Every winter, millions of Canadians take to the ice, indoors and outdoors, in search of fun and fitness. Figure skating is a graceful, creative and athletic sport for boys, girls and adults too!

About the Sport

GENERAL SKATING

Figure skating is one of the most popular sports in the world today. It is an Olympic sport in which individuals, pairs, or groups perform spins, jumps, footwork and other difficult moves on ice skates. In Canada, more than six million people lace up skates every year, and there are many winter celebrations that feature figure skating. Basic skating skills are taught to children, youth and adults. After mastering the basics there are many different routes you can follow: recreational, competitive, adult skating and skating for life!

Men’s and Women’s Singles

The skater is alone on the ice and performs a program or solo routine to music that includes different jumps, spins, foot work, field movements and powerful skating.
Men and women compete separately. Each skater has two programs to skate – a short program (2 minutes and 40 seconds in length) and a free skate program (4 minutes in length for women and 4 ½ minutes for men).
A skater’s score is determined by how difficult their jumps and spins are, how well they perform those jumps and spins, as well as their skating skills, footwork, choreography, and presentation skills.
At this level of competition skaters perform double, triple and quadruple jumps – that means two, three or even four rotations in mid air!

Pair Skating

Consists of a man and a woman skating together as one team. As a skating couple they must coordinate and synchronize their movements.
Considered the more daring of the disciplines, there are some unique and exciting moves that only pair skaters do together such as overhead lifts, twists, throw jumps and death spirals.
They also perform two programs similar to single skaters; a short program (2 minutes and 40 seconds in length) and a free skate program (4 ½ minutes in length).
Some of the names of spins include camel spin, sit spin and layback. You will see the best pair teams perform side by side triple jumps, triple split twists and throw triple jumps in their programs.

Ice Dance

Consists of a man and a woman skating together performing dance steps to music either on a pattern or free flowing around the ice.
Ice dance is basically ballroom dancing on ice, similar to what couples perform on the popular television shows “Dancing with the Stars” or “So You Think You Can Dance”.
The main differences between ice dance and pair skating is that in ice dance:

The focus is on the skating of turns and steps to the rhythm of the music.
The skaters only separate from each other for very short periods of time.
There are no jumps allowed of more than one revolution.
Lifts are allowed but the man cannot lift the woman and have his hands higher than his head.

Ice dancers skate a number of different programs of different lengths depending on their level of competition:

Junior and Senior dancers skate a short dance and a free dance.
Juvenile, Pre-Novice and Novice dancers skate two pattern dances and a free dance.
Pre-Juvenile dancers skate two pattern dances.

(Pattern dance = a set dance with prescribed steps and music that is pre-chosen and everyone does the same one; Short dance = combination of a pattern dance and a free dance but has prescribed rhythm requirements; free dance = a dance that the skaters create themselves as well as choose their own rhythm).

Synchronized Skating

Synchronized skating or "synchro" is a specialized discipline of skating involving groups of eight or more skaters performing various group formations and manoeuvres. The objective is for the team to perform as one unit executing circles, blocks, lines, wheels and intersections in unison to the music, while demonstrating quality edges, power and flow.

Athlete Profile

TESSA VIRTUE & SCOTT MOIR

Like most Canadians, Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir began skating at an early age, six and four years old respectively. They both participated in the Skate Canada CanSkate program to acquire the fundamentals of skating and quickly moved into the competitive stream. They formed an ice dance partnership in 1997 and began to compete on the national circuit. After years of practice and numerous medals, the team hit the pinnacle of amateur success when they won gold at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. They followed this accomplishment in 2010 by winning the national and world title. They became the first and youngest North American team to win an Olympic title.

History

People have been skating for centuries but figure skating did not develop until the mid-19th century. The first account of the sport of figure skating was by an Englishman named Robert Jones in 1772. The British began to hold competitions which were skated in a more formal fashion than today's version of figure skating. American Jackson Haines introduced a more modern style of skating in the mid-1860's which incorporated free and expressive techniques. The Amateur Skating Association of Canada (now known as Skate Canada) was formed in 1887 and by 1914 a separate organization for figure skating had been established. This was known as the Figure Skating Department of the Amateur Skating Association of Canada and the initial members were Ottawa's Minto Club and the Earl Grey Club in Montreal. The first official annual figure skating championships of Canada were held in the same year.

Contact Info

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT FIGURE SKATING

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Kanata ON K2K 1W6
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