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, when contested 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, 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.
Ice dance is a discipline of figure skating that historically draws from ballroom dancing. It joined the World Figure Skating Championships in 1952, and became a Winter Olympic Games medal sport in 1976. According to the International Skating Union (ISU), the governing body of figure skating, an ice dance team consists of one woman and one man.
Figure skating jumps are an element of three competitive figure skating disciplines—men's singles, women's singles, and pair skating, but not ice dancing. Jumping in figure skating is "relatively recent". They were originally individual compulsory figures, and sometimes special figures; many jumps were named after the skaters who invented them or from the figures from which they were developed. It was not until the early part of the 20th century, well after the establishment of organized skating competitions, when jumps with the potential of being completed with multiple revolutions were invented and when jumps were formally categorized. In the 1920s, Austrian skaters began to perform the first double jumps in practice. Skaters experimented with jumps, and by the end of the period, the modern repertoire of jumps had been developed. Jumps did not have a major role in free skating programs during international competitions until the 1930s. During the post-war period and into the 1950s and early 1960s, triple jumps became more common for both male and female skaters, and a full repertoire of two-revolution jumps had been fully developed. In the 1980s, men were expected to complete four or five difficult triple jumps, and women had to perform the easier triples. By the 1990s, after compulsory figures were removed from competitions, multi-revolution jumps became more important in figure skating.
The World Figure Skating Championships ("Worlds") is an annual figure skating competition sanctioned by the International Skating Union. Medals are awarded in the categories of men's singles, women's singles, pair skating, and ice dance. Generally held in March, the World Championships are considered the most prestigious of the ISU Figure Skating Championships. With the exception of the Olympic title, a world title is considered to be the highest competitive achievement in figure skating.
Compulsory figures or school figures were formerly a segment of figure skating, and gave the sport its name. They are the "circular patterns which skaters trace on the ice to demonstrate skill in placing clean turns evenly on round circles". For approximately the first 50 years of figure skating as a sport, until 1947, compulsory figures made up 60 percent of the total score at most competitions around the world. These figures continued to dominate the sport, although they steadily declined in importance, until the International Skating Union (ISU) voted to discontinue them as a part of competitions in 1990. Learning and training in compulsory figures instilled discipline and control; some in the figure skating community considered them necessary to teach skaters basic skills. Skaters would train for hours to learn and execute them well, and competing and judging figures would often take up to eight hours during competitions.
The European Figure Skating Championships is an annual figure skating competition in which figure skaters compete for the title of European champion. Medals are awarded in the disciplines of men's singles, women's singles, pair skating, and ice dance. The event is sanctioned by the International Skating Union (ISU) and is the sport's oldest competition. The first European Championships was held in 1891 in Hamburg, Germany and featured one segment, compulsory figures, with seven competitors, all men from Germany and Austria. It has been, other than four periods, held continuously since 1891, and has been sanctioned by the ISU since 1893. Women were allowed to compete for the first time in 1930, which is also the first time pairs skating was added to the competition. Ice dance was added in 1954. Only eligible skaters from ISU member countries in Europe can compete, and skaters must have reached at least the age of 15 before July 1 preceding the competition. ISU member countries can submit 1-3 skaters to compete in the European Championships.
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 ISU Judging System, occasionally referred to as the Code of Points (COP) system, is the scoring system that has been used since 2004 to judge the figure skating disciplines of men's and ladies' singles, pair skating, ice dance, and synchronized skating. It was designed and implemented by the International Skating Union (ISU), the ruling body of the sport.
The following is a glossary of figure skating terms, sorted alphabetically.
Single skating is a discipline of figure skating in which male and female skaters compete individually. Men's singles and women's singles are governed by the International Skating Union (ISU). Figure skating is the oldest winter sport contested at the Olympics, with men's and women's single skating appearing as two of the four figure skating events at the London Games in 1908.
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.
The free skating segment of figure skating, also called the free skate and the long program, is the second of two segments of competitions, skated after the short program. Its duration, across all disciplines, is four minutes for senior skaters and teams, and three and one-half minutes for junior skaters and teams. Vocal music with lyrics is allowed for all disciplines since the 2014—2015 season. The free skating program, across all disciplines, must be well-balanced and include certain elements described and published by the International Skating Union (ISU).
The 6.0 system of judging figure skating was developed during the early days of the sport, when early international competitions consisted of only compulsory figures. Skaters performed each figure three times on each foot, for a total of six, which as writer Ellyn Kestnbaum states, "gave rise to the system of awarding marks based on a standard of 6.0 as perfection". It was used in competitive figure skating until 2004, when it was replaced by the ISU Judging System in international competitions, as a result of the 2002 Winter Olympics figure skating scandal. British ice dancers Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean earned the most overall 6.0s in ice dance, Midori Ito from Japan has the most 6.0s in single skating, and Irina Rodnina from Russia, with two different partners, has the most 6.0s in pair skating.
The 2008 World Figure Skating Championships was a senior international figure skating competition in the 2007–08 figure skating season. Medals were awarded in the disciplines of men's singles, ladies' singles, pair skating, and ice dancing. The event was held at the Scandinavium arena in Gothenburg, Sweden from March 16 to 23.
The original dance (OD) was one of the programs performed by figure skaters in ice dance competitions, in which the ice dancers skated "a dance of their own creation to dance music they have selected for the designated rhythm(s)". It was normally the second of three programs in the competition, sandwiched between the compulsory dance (CD) and the free dance (FD). The rhythm(s) and type of music required for the OD changed every season, and were selected by the International Skating Union (ISU) before the start of the season. The ice dancers were free to choose their own music and choreography and to create their own routines. They were judged on a set of required criteria, including skating skills and how well they interpreted the music and the rhythm.
The free dance (FD) is a segment of an ice dance competition, the second contested. It follows the rhythm dance (RD). Skaters perform "a creative dance program blending dance steps and movements expressing the character/rhythm(s) of the dance music chosen by the couple". Its duration is four minutes for senior ice dancers, and 3.5 minutes for juniors. French ice dancers Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron hold the highest recorded international FD score of 137.09 points.
The 2008 European Figure Skating Championships was a senior international figure skating competition in the 2007–08 season. Medals were awarded in the disciplines of men's singles, ladies' singles, pair skating, and ice dancing. The event was held from January 21 through 27, 2008 at Dom Sportova in Zagreb, Croatia.
The short dance (SD) was the first segment of an ice dancing competition from the 2010–2011 to the 2017–2018 seasons. It was approved in June 2010 by the International Skating Union (ISU). It merged the original dance (OD) and compulsory dance (CD), which were both discontinued. The ISU re-named the short dance to the rhythm dance (RD) in 2018.
The 2014 Hilton HHonors Skate America was the first event of six in the 2014–15 ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating, a senior-level international invitational competition series. It was held at the Sears Centre in Hoffman Estates, Illinois on October 24–26. Medals were awarded in the disciplines of men's singles, ladies' singles, pair skating, and ice dancing. Skaters earned points toward qualifying for the 2014–15 Grand Prix Final.
The rhythm dance (RD) is the first segment of an ice dance competition. The International Skating Union (ISU) renamed the short dance to the "rhythm dance" in June 2018, prior to the 2018–2019 season. It became part of international competitions in July 2018. French ice dancers Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron hold the highest RD score of 90.83 points, which they achieved at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.
