Figure skating takes its name from patterns once traced on the ice, and it has been reinventing itself ever since. These stories run from bone skates on Finnish lakes to a quadruple Axel in Lake Placid, by way of a Russian champion who competed under a false name, a Hollywood star who wanted an ice machine, and a judging scandal that retired the perfect 6.0.
Every tile in a Figure Skating game carries one of these. Open one to read it now, or leave them for the board to hand you.
Champions
nine stories
1A broken blade, a trip into town, a gold medal
On the tile: Grafström1920-1928
At the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp, one of Gillis Grafström's skate blades broke, and it could not be replaced on site. The Swede went into town, bought a pair of old-fashioned skates, and won the gold medal anyway. He won again in 1924 and 1928, and he remains the only man with three straight Olympic titles in figure skating. Off the ice he was an architect in Potsdam and a collector of skating art, and that collection is now part of the World Figure Skating Museum in Colorado Springs.
2Russia's first Olympic champion used a made-up name
On the tile: Nikolai Panin1908
Russia's first Olympic champion did not compete under his own name. Nikolai Kolomenkin took up figure skating as a student at St. Petersburg University and entered competitions as Nikolai Panin, by one account because he feared his fellow students would mock him. At London in 1908 he won special figures, an event devoted to figures traced on the ice that never appeared on the Olympic program again. Four years later he was back at the Olympics as a pistol shooter, and finished fourth in the team event.
3The skating champion who also swam at the Olympics
On the tile: Karl Schäfer1928-1936
Karl Schäfer of Vienna was a child prodigy in sport and in music. He learned to skate on Eduard Engelmann's rink, but he was a fine swimmer too, winning seven Austrian titles in the pool and swimming the breaststroke at the 1928 Olympics. Skating turned out to be his real calling. From 1929 through 1936 he won seven world titles, eight European titles and Olympic gold in 1932 and 1936. After he retired he co-founded a Vienna ice revue that at first carried his own name.
Within six weeks in 1947, Barbara Ann Scott of Canada held the Canadian, North American, European and world titles at once. Ottawa gave its schoolchildren half a day off to watch her parade, and the city's citizens presented her with a new yellow convertible. Then Avery Brundage, a future president of the International Olympic Committee, protested: keep the car, and she risked losing her amateur status. Scott gave it back. The next winter she went to St. Moritz and won the Olympic gold medal easily.
Lyudmila Belousova and Oleg Protopopov, a married Soviet pair, won Olympic gold at Innsbruck in 1964 and again at Grenoble in 1968, when he was 35 and she was 32. In 1969 they finished behind Irina Rodnina and Aleksey Ulanov at the Soviet, European and world championships, and Soviet skating officials eased them out, saying they were too old for the top level. They did not stop. In 1979 they defected to Switzerland, became Swiss citizens in 1995, and spent many years skating in professional ice shows.
Irina Rodnina won the world pairs title every year from 1969 through 1978, the first four with Aleksey Ulanov and the next six with Aleksandr Zaytsev. She won Olympic gold with Ulanov in 1972 and with Zaytsev in 1976 and 1980, a record three for a pairs skater. Her ten world titles tie a record held by two singles legends, Ulrich Salchow and Sonja Henie. She later coached in the United States, where her pupils included the Czech pair who won the 1995 world title.
Debi Thomas won the U.S. and world titles in 1986, the first skater of African descent to reach the top ranks of international skating. At the 1988 Calgary Olympics she and Katarina Witt both skated their free programs to Carmen, a showdown billed as the Battle of the Carmens. Witt won her second gold, and Thomas took bronze. Then, unlike most champions, Thomas went back to school, skating professionally only a little to pay for it. She graduated from Stanford and from Northwestern's medical school, and trained as an orthopedic surgeon.
When Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan won Olympic gold at Sochi in 2014 and again at PyeongChang in 2018, he joined a very short list. Only three men before him had defended an Olympic singles title in figure skating: Gillis Grafström of Sweden in the 1920s, Karl Schäfer of Austria in the 1930s, and Dick Button of the United States, who won in 1948 and 1952. That made Hanyu the first man to repeat since Button, 66 years earlier.
Andrée Joly and Pierre Brunet of France skated pairs together, later married, and won Olympic gold in 1928 and again in 1932. Andrée was also France's best singles skater, national champion every year from 1921 through 1930. After their competitive careers the couple settled in the United States, skating in ice shows and coaching. Their pupils included two future Olympic champions, Carol Heiss and Scott Hamilton. Their son, Jean-Pierre, became one of the very few skaters ever to beat Dick Button.
The Axel is the only jump that takes off facing forward, so every version carries an extra half turn: a single is one and a half rotations, a triple three and a half. It is named for Axel Paulsen of Norway, a champion speed skater. At a skating event in Vienna in 1882 he won the speed race and an extra prize for his new jump, performed on speed skates. It took 140 years to reach four and a half turns, when Ilia Malinin landed the first quadruple Axel in competition in 2022.
Ulrich Salchow of Sweden won ten world titles between 1901 and 1911 and the first Olympic men's title in 1908, and the jump he first performed in 1909 still carries his name. In 1920 he tried the Olympics one more time, at the age of 42. It ended in a fall, and the jump he fell on was, of all things, a Salchow. He still finished fourth. Salchow went on to serve as president of the International Skating Union from 1925 to 1937.
At the 1962 World Championships in Prague, Donald Jackson of Canada trailed Karol Divín of Czechoslovakia after the compulsory figures and knew he needed near-perfect marks. Skating to Carmen, he opened his free skate with a triple Lutz, the first ever seen in international competition, then skated the rest of his five-minute program without a flaw. The judges gave him seven perfect sixes, and he won the title. The jump itself is named for Alois Lutz, an Austrian who performed it in 1913.
4The first quad, and the Olympic quad that came later
On the tile: Kurt Browning1988-1992
The International Skating Union credits Kurt Browning of Canada with the first quadruple toe loop, landed at the 1988 World Championships in Budapest. He went on to win the world title in 1989, 1990, 1991 and 1993. The first quad at an Olympics, though, belonged to someone else. At Albertville in 1992 Browning stood fourth after the short program and finished sixth, while Petr Barna of Czechoslovakia landed a quadruple jump on his way to the bronze medal.
At the 1976 Olympics in Innsbruck, Terry Kubicka of the United States did a backflip in his free skate, the first at the Winter Games. Months later the International Skating Union banned it. At Nagano in 1998, Surya Bonaly of France did a then-illegal backflip anyway, landing it on one blade. In 2024 the ISU took somersault jumps off its list of illegal moves. By then Kubicka was a veterinarian and a skating official, and earlier that year he had sat on the technical panel that called a backflip illegal at the world championships.
Cecilia Colledge of Britain skated at the 1932 Olympics at 11 years and 73 days old, and grew up to be world champion. Her mother had unusual training ideas. She took Cecilia to a circus contortionist, Miss Lee, who tied a rope around the girl's waist and used an overhead bar as a pulley to teach her a backbend. Colledge went on to invent two spins, the camel, which she called the parallel spin, and the layback, and her Guardian obituary gives much of the credit for the layback to that pulley.
After Shizuka Arakawa won Japan's first Olympic figure skating gold at Turin in 2006, almost everyone in Japan learned the term Ina Bauer. A soba restaurant even served Ina Bauer Soba, with its shrimp tempura bent backward. Many fans assumed the name meant Arakawa's dramatic backbend. It does not. The Ina Bauer, named for a West German skater of the 1950s, means gliding sideways with the legs spread forward and back and the toes pointing in opposite directions. Arakawa performed it while bending far backward, and the arch is what people remembered.
For years the International Skating Union called it the half loop, a single jump most often used in the middle of a three-jump combination to set up a flip or Salchow. At its congress in June 2018, the ISU switched to the name roller skaters had always used: the Euler. In parts of Europe it has a third name, the Thorén, after Per Thorén of Sweden, who won the men's bronze medal at the 1908 Olympics. On a score sheet it appears as 1Eu.
Olympic spins look fast, but the fastest one on record came during a special attempt. On January 19, 2015, Olivia Oliver of Canada spun at 342 revolutions per minute, nearly six turns every second, according to Guinness World Records. She set the mark at the National Stadium in Warsaw, the city where she was born, and used the attempt to raise money for Polish children with life-threatening illnesses and for a Canadian youth charity, Leave Out Violence.
Figure skating was an Olympic sport 16 years before the first Winter Olympics. The 1908 London Games ran from the end of April to the end of October, and the skaters did not take the ice until October 28 and 29, at Prince's Skating Club in Knightsbridge. Four titles were decided in those two days: men's singles, women's singles, pairs and a men's special figures event. Then the sport skipped the 1912 Games in Stockholm and did not return until Antwerp in 1920.
No rule barred women from the World Championships, so in 1902 Madge Syers of Britain entered, and finished second to the great Ulrich Salchow. The authorities promptly barred women. The ban was lifted in 1905, and a separate ladies' event began in 1906. Syers won it that year and the next, though the skating union counted those titles as world championships only years later. At the 1908 London Olympics she won the women's gold medal, and a bronze in pairs skating with her husband, Edgar.
At the 1972 Olympics, Trixi Schuba of Austria placed only seventh in the free skate and still won the gold medal, because she dominated the compulsory figures, which then weighed heavily in the result. Janet Lynn of the United States won the free skate easily and took bronze. Lynn's skating drove crowds wild, and the authorities changed the rules, cutting the figures back and adding a short program. Schuba had already left amateur skating. Lynn stayed one more season, won the free skate at the 1973 World Championships, took silver and turned professional.
In skating's early competitions, skaters tried to draw the most elaborate figures on the ice, which is why the sport is called figure skating. The figures lasted a long time. At the 1988 U.S. championships they still counted for 30 percent of the score and could take five hours to complete, and eight hours at a world championship. One top coach said skaters practiced them from 5 until 9 in the morning. By the 1992 Olympics they were gone, and skaters were judged on a short program and a free skate alone.
The men's event at the 1988 Calgary Olympics came down to two Brians. Brian Boitano of the United States and Brian Orser of Canada had traded the last two world titles, and Orser led their head-to-head record seven meetings to three. Whoever won the free skate would win gold. Boitano skated first and was nearly flawless. Orser, skating last, doubled out of a triple Axel near the end. Five judges ranked Boitano first in the free skate and four ranked Orser, and the gold medal went to Boitano.
In the pairs event at Salt Lake City in 2002, Russia's Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze beat Canada's Jamie Salé and David Pelletier on a 5-4 split of the judges. Then a French judge said she had been pressured to favor the Russians, a claim she later recanted. The International Olympic Committee pushed the skating union to award a second set of gold medals, to the Canadians, and made clear it wanted a new judging system. In 2004 the ISU approved one that awards points for jumps, spins, footwork and artistry.
Michelle Kwan received the last 6.0 marks ever given in International Skating Union competition. They came at the 2004 World Championships in Dortmund, Germany, where the judges awarded her six of them for her free skate. She still finished third. Under the old system, a 6.0 was one judge's mark used to rank skaters against each other, not a guarantee of winning. Three months later, the ISU voted in a new judging system built on points, and the perfect 6.0 was gone for good.
The area where skaters wait for their scores is called the kiss and cry, and the phrase is credited to Jane Erkko, a Finnish skating official who helped bring the 1983 World Championships to Helsinki. The story goes that the chief technician at those championships asked her what to call the flower-decorated space where skaters would sit to receive their scores. She told him it was the kiss and cry corner, and he wrote KISS AND CRY on a board. The phrase caught on around the world.
Brian Boitano, the 1988 Olympic champion, lost his eligibility by skating in professional events outside the International Skating Union. In June 1992, at its congress in Davos, the ISU approved a proposal from the U.S. association that let such skaters ask for reinstatement. Boitano, who had lobbied for the change, came back for the 1994 Olympics at Lillehammer and finished sixth. Katarina Witt, the champion of 1984 and 1988, returned too, and placed seventh.
On December 1, 1662, during a great frost, Samuel Pepys walked across St. James's Park in London and saw something he had never seen in his life: people sliding on skates. He called it "a very pretty art." Two weeks later he followed the Duke of York into the same park. The ice was broken and dangerous, but the duke insisted on skating anyway. Pepys wrote that he did not like it, though he had to admit the duke slid very well.
2A 1772 skating manual that wanted ladies on the ice
On the tile: Robert Jones1772
In 1772 a bookseller in St. James's Street, London, sold A Treatise on Skating by R. Jones, Lieutenant of Artillery. It taught moves with names like the flying Mercury and the salutation, and explained how to cut the figure of a heart on one leg. In his preface Jones took on the idea that skating suited only men. He saw no reason ladies should be excluded, and argued that not even the minuet gave half the opportunity to show off a pretty foot.
3A skating club that also rescued people from the ice
On the tile: Philadelphia1849-1861
In 1849 skaters founded The Skater's Club of the City and County of Philadelphia. Its members skated on frozen rivers and lakes, and alongside instruction and friendship, one of the club's aims was rescuing people who fell through the ice. The city's Humane Society, organized in 1770 to save people from drowning, later stopped functioning, and the skaters took over its duties. In 1861 they became the Philadelphia Skating Club and Humane Society, the club that later counted Dick Button and Scott Hamilton among its members.
4London's early rinks smelled of lard, then filled with mist
On the tile: Glaciarium1841-1876
Artificial ice took a few tries. In 1841 the British inventor Henry Kirk made a London rink from a mix of salts and pig fat. Then John Gamgee, a veterinarian who had patented a way to freeze meat for long sea voyages, adapted his method to make real ice. On January 7, 1876, he opened the Glaciarium in a tent off the Kings Road in Chelsea, the first permanent, mechanically frozen ice rink. It did not smell of lard, but it produced a thick mist, and by 1878 all his rinks had closed.
Sonja Henie of Norway won ten straight world titles and Olympic gold in 1928, 1932 and 1936, then turned professional in 1936. What came next may have mattered even more to her sport. She starred in ten Hollywood feature films, toured the world with spectacular ice revues that were especially popular in the United States, and earned enough to become one of the richest athletes ever. Olympedia's biographers say she did more to popularize figure skating than any other individual.
Resurfacing the ice at Paramount Iceland in California took a crew more than an hour: shovel off the shavings, wash the surface, lay a fresh coat of water. Frank Zamboni bought a tractor in 1942 and spent seven years on the problem. The Model A he finished in 1949 rode on war surplus axles and engine parts, including a hydraulic cylinder from a bomber, and one person could resurface a rink with it. In 1950 the skating star Sonja Henie saw it working, ordered two, and Zamboni towed the parts for hers to Chicago.
7Shut out of the rinks, she opened doors for others
On the tile: M. Fairbanks1930s-1997
In the 1930s Mabel Fairbanks taught herself to skate on frozen ponds in Harlem and on the Central Park lake, in used pawnshop skates that cost a dollar and ran too big. Rinks would not admit her because she was Black, and she was never allowed to compete. She skated in ice revues instead, then moved to Los Angeles in 1946 and coached skaters of all races. She paired Tai Babilonia with Randy Gardner, the 1979 world champions, and in 1997 became the first African American inducted into the U.S. Figure Skating Hall of Fame.
On February 15, 1961, Sabena Flight 548 crashed near Brussels on its way from New York to the World Championships in Prague. All 72 people aboard were killed, including the 18 members of the United States figure skating team. Among them were 16-year-old Laurence Owen and her sister Maribel, whose mother, the nine-time U.S. champion Maribel Vinson Owen, was aboard too. The championships were canceled. Within weeks, skating officials set up a memorial fund to build a new generation of skaters, and it has since given out more than 15 million dollars.
9The Olympic medalist who edited Skating for 40 years
On the tile: Theresa Weld1920-1963
Theresa Weld of the Skating Club of Boston won the bronze medal in women's singles at the 1920 Antwerp Olympics, and at home she collected U.S. titles in singles and, with Nathaniel Niles, a long run of pairs championships. Her most lasting work came off the ice. In 1923 she founded Skating magazine, and she edited it for the next 40 years, until 1963, when she became editor emeritus. In 1989 she was elected to the International Women's Sports Hall of Fame.