Figure skating is a sport in which individuals, pairs, or groups perform on figure skates on ice. It was the first winter sport to be included in the Olympic Games, with its introduction occurring at the 1908 Olympics in London. The Olympic disciplines are men's singles, women's singles, pair skating, and ice dance; the four individual disciplines are also combined into a team event, which was first included in the Winter Olympics in 2014. The non-Olympic disciplines include synchronized skating, Theater on Ice, and four skating. From intermediate through senior-level competition, skaters generally perform two programs, which, depending on the discipline, may include spins, jumps, moves in the field, lifts, throw jumps, death spirals, and other elements or moves.
Spins are an element in figure skating in which the skater rotates, centered on a single point on the ice, while holding one or more body positions. They are performed by all disciplines of the sport, single skating, pair skating, and ice dance, and are a required element in most figure skating competitions. As The New York Times says, "While jumps look like sport, spins look more like art. While jumps provide the suspense, spins provide the scenery, but there is so much more to the scenery than most viewers have time or means to grasp". According to world champion and figure skating commentator Scott Hamilton, spins are often used "as breathing points or transitions to bigger things".
Shizuka Arakawa is a retired Japanese figure skater. She is the 2006 Olympic champion and the 2004 World champion. Arakawa is the first Japanese skater to win an Olympic gold medal in figure skating and the second Japanese skater to win any Olympic medal in figure skating, after Midori Ito, who won silver in 1992. She is also the second Japanese woman to win a gold medal at the Winter Olympics, following skier Tae Satoya. She was the only Japanese medalist at the 2006 Winter Olympics.
Irina Eduardovna Slutskaya is a Russian former figure skater. She is a two-time World champion, two-time Olympic medalist, seven-time European champion, a four-time Grand Prix Final champion and a four-time Russian national champion. She won a record total of 17 titles on the Grand Prix circuit.
A layback spin is a variation of the upright spin, a spin in figure skating. British figure skater Cecilia Colledge was "responsible for the invention" of the spin and the first to execute it. Colledge's coach, Jacques Gerschwiler, who was a former gymnastics teacher and according to Colledge "very progressive in his ideas", got the idea for the upright spin while watching one of Colledge's trainers, a former circus performer turned acrobatics instructor, train Colledge to perform backbends "by means of a rope tied around her waist". The upright spin has long been associated with women's skating, but men have also performed it. Skaters include it in their programs because it increases their technical content and fulfills choreographic needs.
Denise Biellmann is a Swiss professional figure skater. She was the European and World Champion in 1981 and won the Swiss Championships three times.
A spiral is an element in figure skating where the skater glides on one foot while raising the free leg above hip level. It is akin to the arabesque in ballet.
Pair skating is a figure skating discipline defined by the International Skating Union (ISU) as "the skating of two persons in unison who perform their movements in such harmony with each other as to give the impression of genuine Pair Skating as compared with independent Single Skating". The ISU also states that a pairs team consists of "one Woman and one Man". Pair skating, along with men's and women's single skating, has been an Olympic discipline since figure skating, the oldest Winter Olympic sport, was introduced at the 1908 Summer Olympics in London. The ISU World Figure Skating Championships introduced pair skating in 1908.
The camel spin is one of the three basic figure skating spin positions. British figure skater Cecilia Colledge was the first to perform it. The camel spin, for the first ten years after it was created, was performed mostly by women, although American skater Dick Button performed the first forward camel spin, a variation of the camel spin, and made it a regular part of the repertoire performed by male skaters. The camel spin is executed on one foot, and is an adaptation of the ballet pose the arabesque to the ice. When the camel spin is executed well, the stretch of the skater's body creates a slight arch or straight line. Skaters increase the difficulty of camel spins in a variety of ways.
The following is a glossary of figure skating terms, sorted alphabetically.
The death spiral is a figure skating term used to describe a spin involving two partners in the discipline of pair skating, in which one partner lowers the other partner while the partner getting close to the ice arches backward on one foot. It was created by German professional skater Charlotte Oelschlägel and her husband Curt Newmann in the 1920s. Suzanne Morrow and Wallace Diestelmeyer from Canada were the first pair team to perform the death spiral one-handed, at the 1948 Olympic Games. In the 1960s, Soviet pair team Liudmila Belousova and Oleg Protopopov created three death spirals: "the backward-inside, forward-inside and forward-outside death spirals, which they originally named the Cosmic Spiral, Life Spiral and Love Spiral, respectively". The International Skating Union (ISU), the governing body that oversees figure skating, allows for variations of arm holds and pivot positions. Senior pair skating teams must perform different types of death spirals in their short programs and free skating programs.
The short program of figure skating is the first of two segments of competitions, skated before the free skating program. It lasts, for both senior and junior singles and pair skaters, 2 minutes and 40 seconds. In synchronized skating, for both juniors and seniors, the short program lasts 2 minutes and 50 seconds. Vocal music with lyrics is allowed for all disciplines since the 2014–2015 season. The short program for single skaters and for pair skaters consists of seven required elements, and there are six required elements for synchronized skaters.
Caroline Zhao Zhang is an American figure skater. She is a two-time Four Continents bronze medalist, the 2007 World Junior Champion, the 2006 Junior Grand Prix Final champion, and a three-time U.S. national medalist.
Javier Fernández López is a Spanish former figure skater. He is the 2018 Olympic bronze medalist, a two-time World champion, a two-time World bronze medalist, a seven-time European champion (2013–2019), a two-time Grand Prix Final silver medalist, a three-time Rostelecom Cup champion (2014–2016), a two-time Grand Prix in France champion (2016–2017) and an eight-time Spanish national champion.
Figure skating lifts are required elements in two disciplines of figure skating: pair skating and ice dance. There are five groups of lifts in pair skating, categorized in order of increasing level of difficulty. Judges look for the following when evaluating pair lifts: speed of entry and exit; control of the woman's free leg when she is exiting out of the lift, with the goal of keeping the leg high and sweeping; the position of the woman in the air; the man's footwork; quick and easy changes of position; and the maintenance of flow throughout the lift. Twist lifts are "the most thrilling and exciting component in pair skating". They can also be the most difficult movement to perform correctly. They require more strength and coordination than many other pair elements, and are usually the first or second element in a program. According to the International Skating Union (ISU), "the Woman must be caught in the air at the waist by the Man prior to landing and be assisted to a smooth landing on the ice on a backward outside edge on one foot" during a twist lift. A pair lift and twist lift is required in the short program of pair skating; a well-balanced free skating program in pair skating must include lifts.
The sit spin is one of the oldest elements in figure skating. It was invented by American figure skater Jackson Haines. It has been called "one of the most important spins in skating". According to figure skater John MIsha Petkevich, despite its difficulty to learn and the amount of energy it requires to execute it, "yields immense rewards" for the skater. There is a wide variety of sitting positions skaters have invented, and also according to Petkevich, the choice of a sitting position are not determined by aesthetic design or technical objections, but is often determined by convenience. The skater can make refinements to the sit spin, which will do the following: increase the speed of the spin's rotation; make the spin more exciting as it ends; and introduce positions that will increase the skater's strength and style.
The upright spin is one of the three basic figure skating spin positions. The International Skating Union (ISU), the governing body of figure skating, defines an upright spin as a spin with "any position with the skating leg extended or slightly bent which is not a camel position". It was invented by British figure skater Cecilia Colledge. Variations of the upright spin include the layback spin, the Biellmann spin, the full layback, the split, the back upright spin, the forward upright spin, the scratchspin, and the sideways leaning spin.
Yuzuru Hanyu is a Japanese figure skater, ice show producer and director, author, and philanthropist. Regarded as one of the greatest figure skaters in history for his well-rounded skills, achievements, innovations, longevity, popularity, and impact on the sport, he started skating at four years old and competed in the men's singles discipline from 2004 to 2022. Hanyu is the first male single skater in 66 years since Dick Button to win back-to-back Olympic titles, and also the youngest and first Olympic champion from Asia in that discipline. He is a two-time World champion, a six-time Japanese national champion, and the first single skater to win four consecutive Grand Prix Finals (2014–2017). With his win at the 2020 Four Continents Championships, he became the first male single skater to complete the Super Slam, having won all major international junior and senior titles in the course of his career. He is also the only male single skater besides Jan Hoffmann to medal at seven World Championships in the post-war era since 1946. Hanyu broke world records 19 times, the most in singles since the introduction of the ISU Judging System in 2003, and was the first skater to land a quadruple loop jump in international competition among other achievements.
Yuzuru Hanyu, a former competitive figure skater from Japan, participated in the Winter Olympic Games three times, winning two gold medals and placing fourth in 2022. In 2014, he became the first Asian men's singles skater to win at the Olympics. At 19 years old, he was also the youngest male skater to win the Olympic title since American Dick Button in 1948. In 2018, Hanyu became the first male single skater in 66 years to win two consecutive Olympic gold medals since Button in 1952.
