Like so many regulated sports, this one comes from millenary activities –ludic or survival–. Ice skating would have emerged as a way to save energy when traveling , an essential fact for survival. 5,000-year-old skates have been found in scattered areas of Scandinavia and Russia. Made from animal bones, they are the first known means of transportation powered by human energy.
Researchers from Italy and the United Kingdom have located the origin of the first skates in the south of present-day Finland : the abundance of lakes in that region would have led its inhabitants to devise this device to avoid the long and exhausting detours of large surfaces frost and drastically shorten your journeys. There are testimonies of the presence of ice skaters in London in the 12th century, and Dutch paintings and engravings are famous, which from the 15th century onwards show a multitude of skilful skaters on the ice of the country’s canals. It was probably there that the embryo of what would one day be figure skating appeared.
In the 19th century there were several decisive technical advances for this activity: steel blades appeared , much lighter and stronger than iron blades, with greater curvature and therefore more appropriate for turning. Skates with blades permanently attached to the boots also began to be used, and the first artificial ice rinks were built .
Figure skating as we know it emerged in 1892 with the founding of the International Skating Union (ISU). In previous decades, European competitions had been held in both ice skating and figure skating races (this modality had its first international championship in 1882, in Vienna).
The proliferation of European tournaments and national clubs and federations led to the formation of the ISU , which with the incorporation of Canada (1894) jumped to other continents and which now brings together 71 countries , Spain among them.
Since then, the ISU has organized all international competitions and has been marking the evolution of the rules of figure skating, with its different pirouettes, spins, jumps and acrobatics that are judged by judges according to their aesthetic and athletic merits.
