Name: The History of Figure Skating
Uploaded: 2026-02-15T03:42:43.000Z
Duration: 5 min 16 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

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While the exact time and process by which humans first learned to ice skate remains unknown, primitive animal bone ice skates have been found in parts of Scandinavia and Russia, some dating back to around 3000 BC.

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It's our firm belief that these early skaters didn't have the benefits of carbon fiber technology, which today's skaters use.

The earliest written mention of ice skating can be found in a book written in the 12th century by William Fitzstephen, a monk in Canterbury.

In the book, he speaks about how the children in London have attached bones to their ankles and carry well worn sticks.

The sticks that Fitzstephen refers to were used for movement, as these primitive bone made ice skates didn't have sharp gliding edges like today's modern ice skates.

The first depiction of ice skating in a work of art was made in the 15th century and depicts Saint Lydwina.

Saint Lydwina is the patron saint of ice skaters, so it's only appropriate that the first ever piece of art shows a falling as a main theme.

Another important aspect of the painting is a man seen in the background who's skating on one foot.

This means that the ice skates the man was wearing must have had sharp edges similar to those found on modern ice skates.

In the Netherlands, ice skating was considered proper for all classes of people to participate in.

Skating was used as a means, means of transportation, because the waterways which connected Dutch towns sometimes froze for months on end, hampering the economy.

In other regions, participation in ice skating was limited to only members of the upper classes.

Emperor Rudolf II of the Holy Roman Empire enjoyed ice skating so much, he had a large ice carnival constructed in his court in 1610 in order to popularise the sport.

King Louis XVI of France brought ice skating to Paris during his reign.

Madame de Pompadour, Napoleon I, Napoleon II and the House of Stuart were among others, royal and upper class fans of ice skating.

Edges were added to the blades by the Dutch in the 13th and 14th century.

The addition of edges on the bottom could aid the movement of the skater.

The construction of modern ice skates has remained largely the same.

This new design meant that the user of the skates no longer needed to use sticks for propulsion and movement became much more stable.

As the popularity of skating grew across Europe, a royal toolmaker by the name of John Wilson was commissioned to make a pair of figure skating blades for King William III in 1696.

John Wilson was a Sheffield engineer who was known throughout England for the quality of his tools.

His crafting skills and his unparalleled reputation for excellence, it's no wonder the crown came knocking on his door.

The royal seal of approval ensured that John Wilson's business continued to bloom while the strong connection to British royalty carried on and inspired Queen Victoria to commission a pair of skates for herself and Prince Albert in the 1840s.

From British royalty to skating royalty like Yuzuru Hanyu, John Wilson blades still have a reputation for excellence and continue to make blades in the heart of Sheffield in the Beginning of the 20th century, figure skating was lent more athletic character through the development of a Swede by the name of Ulrich Salchow.

Salchow was considered the greatest figure skater of his day by far, winning the World Championships 10 times.

Salchow's crowning achievement of his career, however, was his development of ice skates and with slightly serrated blades giving enough traction on the ice to launch long jumps.

The Salchow Jump, a staple in modern figure skating, is appropriately named after this legend in the sport.

Figure skating's debut at the Olympics came at the 1909 Summer Olympics.

It was the first winter sport introduced to the Olympics.

Unfortunately, no major international championships were held from 1915 to 1921 due to World War I and the recovery following it.

The construction of new ice rinks built solely for ice skating allowed much more intensive training and improved performance on the ice.

This led to other changes in the sport, such as heavier emphasis on the free skate.

In 1952, ice dancing was added to the World Championships.

It appeared at the 1968 Winter Olympics as a demonstration sport and was added as a medal sport at the 1975 Olympics.

Fast forward a few years and you have the current state of figure skating that we all know and love.

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It's hard to include every detail of the past 5,000 years in just one video, so there's a lot we're skipping over.

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