TEXT C Skeletal remains with
animal bone blades tied to the feet testify to skating’ s existence as early as
10,000 BC. These remains were found in the Netherlands. Scandinavia is called
the mother of skating because of the sport’ s popularity there, beginning around
1000AD. Ice skating was primarily a means of transportation at first, although
documents from the Netherlands indicate that speed races were held in towns as
early as the 15th century. American athlete Jackson Haines is
known as the father of modem figure skating. Haines was born in 1840 in New York
City. After studying dance and ballet, he became a dancing master and applied
his dancing techniques to figure skating. He performed around the world and
became well known for his imaginative and artistic techniques. Haines’s style
was enthusiastically received in Europe and eventually became accepted
internationally. The formation of national and international
skating organizations began during the 1890s. In 1892 the International Skating
Union (ISU) was established. Today the ISU defines the rules and sets
performance standards for speed skating, figure skating, and ice dancing
competitions. Also in the late 1800s the National Amateur Skating Association of
the United States and the International Skating Union of America were founded.
In 1921 national standards were set down for skating, and the United States
Figure Skating Association (USFSA) was formed to govern the sport in the United
States, superseding the earlier organizations. Speed skating in the United
States is governed by the United States International Speed Skating Association
and the Amateur speed skating Union of the United States, both of which are
affiliated with the ISU. The first official men’s world speed
skating championships were held in 1893. Women’s world champion- ship speed
skating events first took place in 1947. The first men’s world figure skating
championships were held in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in 1896, and in 1906 the
first women’s championships were held in Davos, Switzerland. Figure skating was
included in the Summer Olympics of 1908 and 1920 and at the first Winter
Olympics in 1924, where men’s speed skating events were also held. Women’s speed
skating made its Olympic debut in the 1960 Olympic Games. Ice dancing was added
to Olympic competition in 1976, and short-track speed skating was first included
in the 1988 Games. Norway’s Sonja Henie played a large role in
popularizing figure skating during the 1920s and 1930s. On the strength of her
athletic jumps, modern costumes, and inventive choreography she won gold medals
at the Winter Olympic Games in 1928, 1932, and 1936. Henie later skated in ice
shows and in motion pictures, inspiring many people to take up skating. American
skater Dick Button, a five-time world champion and two-time Olympic gold
medalist, brought outstanding athleticism to skating. Along with inventing the
flying camel sit spin, he was also the first skater to successfully complete a
double axel and a triple jump in competition. In the 1970s Soviet pairs skaters
Oleg and Ludmila Protopopov transformed pairs skating with their elegant,
balletlike movements. In the 1980s British ice dancers Jayne Torvill and
Christopher Dean dominated competition with innovative routines that broke away
from ice dancing traditions. The development of modem speed
skating is credited to Jaap Eden, a Dutch skater born in 1873. He set a world
record in 1894, completing a 5000-meter race in 8 minutes 37.6 seconds. Since
then Eden’s record has been broken many times and today the best skaters
complete the same distance in a little over 6 minutes, primarily as a result of
more sophisticated training methods. Other successful speed skaters include Eric
Heiden of the United States, a three-time world champion who won five gold
medals during the 1980 Winter Olympics; Norway’ s Johann Olay Koss, who set
three new world records during the 1994 Winter Olympics; and Dan Jansen of the
United States, who dominated speed skating for more than ten years from the
mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, capping his success with a gold medal and a world
record in the 1000-meter long-track race at the 1994 Olympics. Successful female
speed skaters include Germany’s Gunda Niemann, who won seven all- around world
championship titles between 1991 and 1998, and Bonnie Blair of the United
States, who won a total of five Olympic gold medals in the 1988, 1992, and 1994
Olympics. Blair was also the first woman to skate 500 meters in less than 39
seconds. Who was the first skater to successfully complete a double axel and a triple jump in competition
A.American athlete Jackson Haines. B.Norway’ s Sonja Henie. C.American skater Dick Button. D.Dutch skater Jaap Eden.