The roots of ice skating can be traced back over 1,000 years to Northern Europe where people used skates as transportation over frozen lakes, rivers and canals. These early skates were made of polished animal bones, and eventually waxed wood, that would be lashed to a person’s footwear. In the late 1500’s a Scottish innovator built the first pair of all-iron skates. With this development the popularity of skating began to spread and the activity began to evolve as an organized sport.
By the mid 1800’s European settlers brought the sport of speed skating to the United States. With popularity quickly growing it soon became practical for speed skating to become an organized international sport. In 1892 the International Skating Union (ISU) was formed as the governing body for all international skating competition and began to control the organization of an annual world championship in speed skating.
Speed skating took another important step in international competition in 1924 when men’s long track events were included in the first Winter Olympic Games held in Chamonix, France (women would be included in long track competition in the 1960 Olympics). Eight years later when the Olympic Winter Games were hosted by Lake Placid, the Americans would dominate the speed skating events as Jack Shea and Irving Jaffee, each won two gold medals.
The tradition has continued as U.S. speed skaters have won medals at almost every Winter Olympics. With 85 total Olympic medals speed skating is the winningest sport in U.S. Winter Olympic history.
THE BASICS OF SPEEDSKATING
In its simplest form speedskating is skating as fast as possible for as long as possible. From this concept has grown a competitive form of ice skating in which the competitors race each other in specific distances. Speedskaters have adopted a low crouched position that improves aerodynamics and allows the skater to apply more force and extend their leg further to the side during the push.
There are two disciplines within the sport of speedskating: long track and short track. Certain aspects of the two are similar and this allows an athlete who has developed the physical conditioning, balance, and skating technique in one of the disciplines to transition into the other discipline with relative ease.
Long Track Basics:
Long Track speedskating takes place on a 400 meter oval ice rink. Athletes compete in pairs, skating counter-clockwise in separate lanes around the oval and changing lanes once per lap, to equalize the distance covered. During the exchanges, which always take place at the same part of the track, the skater in the outside lane has the right-of-way should the two skaters arrive at the changeover point at the same time. In each race distance the time that each skater takes to complete that distance is measured and the overall race winner is the skater with the lowest total time.
Short Track Basics:
Short track speedskating takes place on a 111 meter oval track that can be laid out on most hockey rinks. Short track races are fast, exciting and full of strategy. Instead of racing in pairs as in long track, short track skaters mass start with four to eight skaters on the starting line. In addition to speed, strategy plays a large role in the outcome of a race. Often, races are won by the best tactician. In competition, skaters must finish among the top two in their heat, quarterfinals and semifinals to qualify for the finals.
speedskating training: video featuring apolo ohno
notable speedskaters
Apolo Ohno- Winner of 8 Olympic Medals, most decorated U.S. Winter Olympian
Bonnie Blair- Winner of 5 Olympic Gold Medals, and 1 Bronze over 3 Olympic Games
Charles Jewtraw- First Winter Olympic Games Gold medalist
Dan Jansen- Gold Medal 1994
Derek Parra- First Latino American to win a Winter Olympic Gold
Eric Flaim- Olympic Medals in both short and long track
Eric Heiden- Only athlete to win 5 individual gold medals in a single Olympic Winter Games
Irving Jaffee- Won 2 Gold Medals in 1932 Lake Plaic Games
Jack Shea - Won 2 Gold Medals in 1932 Lake Placid Games. First American to win 2 Gold Medals in the same Olympics.
Jeanne Ashworth - First American woman to win an Olympic medal in speedskating in 1960
Shani Davis- Winner of 2 Gold Medals and 2 Silver Medals over the last 2 Olympics Games
Skaters from our club WITH significant accomplishments
Chris Windham - 2nd Place 2010 Long Track Junior National Trials
Claude Gilbert - National Champion (2004, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010)
Kristen Santos - National Champion in 2006, 2nd Place in 2008 National Championships
Young Skaters who are showing a lot of potential
J.R. Celski (Monterey, CA)
Katherine Reutter (Champaign, IL)
Trevor Marsicano (Ballston Spa, NY)