It's great to run with friends to the skating rink on a frosty day! And there to compete who is faster and who has the steeper turn. And it always seemed to me that skates were called skates, because they rush so fast. Well, just like horses!

Indeed, the Russian word "skates" was formed from the word "horse". But not because of the speed, but because earlier the front part of the skates was decorated with the head of a horse.

It turns out that our distant ancestors also loved to ride them. Not far from Odessa, archaeologists have unearthed two pairs of the oldest skates ever found on the planet. They are over three thousand years old! They are made from walrus tusks and animal bones. The first skates were similar to skis, since they did not have pointed ribs. And people pushed off with the help of sticks, so they moved on skates quickly and confidently.

What skates were not made of! In China, pieces of bamboo were attached to boots, in Siberia they rode walrus tusks, in Kazakhstan they made skates from horse bones.

As time went on, the shape of the skates and the material from which they were made changed. In the 17th century, skates were made of wood, and the bottom and front were upholstered with iron.

At the beginning of the 18th century, the first steel skates appeared in northern Europe, but their fastening was weak, they often fell off the feet of those who like to skate on ice. A strong mount was invented by ours. Historical chronicles tell about Tsar Peter I, who amazed the Dutch with his extraordinary solution: he screwed skates right to his boots and dashingly glided to the shipyard, where he underwent an internship. Upon his return to Russia, he ordered to establish the production of skates in Tula. With the death of Peter, the hobby for skating came to naught, nevertheless, a hundred years later, Pushkin noted “how fun it is to slide on the mirror of standing flat rivers with sharp iron shoes.” Tsar Peter I, who was fond of ice skating. He decided that the skates and shoes should form a single whole and screwed the skates to the boots.

Muscovites learned to skate with great diligence, and there are some curious memoirs of their contemporaries written in the 17th century. “Muscovites diligently learned to skate, and they repeatedly fell and were badly hurt. And since they, through negligence, sometimes skated on thin ice, some of them fell neck-deep into the water. Meanwhile, they tolerated the cold well and therefore did not rush to put on a dry dress, but continued to skate for some time in a wet one. Then they changed into a dry dress and went for a drive again. They did this so zealously that they made progress, and some of them could skate perfectly ... "

If at first skates were used only as a means of transportation, then later they became a favorite pastime in winter. The first speed skating club opened in 1604 in the Scottish city of Edinburgh. Even the conditions required for skaters who wanted to become members of the club have been preserved. It was necessary to drive a circle on one leg, jump over three hats, placed one on top of the other, at high speed to raise a coin lying on the ice.

The very first thin-blade running skates were invented in 1888 by two Norwegian runners inventors. On such skates, the speed of athletes increased and the first world champion in speed skating became the Russian athlete Alexander Panshin.

And what are the skaters doing on the ice just now? Well, their skates, of course, are special! Nowadays, each sport has its own skates. These are speed skating skates, short track skates, hockey, figure skates, as well as walking skates for tourism. It all started with a solid bone!

Earliest mention of the word "Horse" can be found in the "English-Dutch Dictionary" Gemakh (1648). The word international sports "skates" came from the Russian language skates, skates-runners, skates-humpbacked. The front of the wooden skates was decorated with a horse's head - hence the affectionate name, a diminutive for the word "horse": skates.

Skate history
The first devices for moving on ice, which we know about from archaeological excavations and from literature, were made from animal bones. Such skate bones have been found in the Netherlands, Denmark, Bavaria, Bohemia, Switzerland, England, Norway, Sweden and the Soviet Union. Skates are one of the oldest inventions of mankind. Carved from wood or carved from animal bones and attached to a boot, the skates made it possible to move quickly on ice-covered ground. In Siberia, they rode on walrus tusks, in China - on bamboo trunks. The skates found by archaeologists in Kazakhstan near Borovoye Lake were made from the shin bone of a horse. A similar horse is kept in the London Museum - a long sharpened bone with a slot for a lace. This horse was found in Moorefield in 1839. The British Museum exhibits bone skates that were skated nearly two thousand years ago. These skates were found in the last century. And more recently, in 1967, on the banks of the Southern Bug and a dry estuary not far from Odessa, archaeologists discovered the most ancient skates ever found; these skates belonged to the Cimmerians, a nomadic tribe that lived 3200 years ago in the Northern Black Sea region. The Cimerians Ski-skates have been running on skates since the Bronze Age. These devices were made from the bones of domestic animals. The bone was ground on one side, and special holes were made at the ends for attaching to shoes.

The first skates were actually the prototype of skis, they did not have pointed ribs. Repulsion had to be done with sticks. But still, movement on the ice-covered surface was much faster and more confident. Similar bone skates existed in ancient times, and some of them are attributed by archaeologists to the Stone Age. In terms of age, they surpass the "inventory" of the ancient Dutch and Danes in Scandinavia, skates appeared only in the Viking Age. In Russia, bone skates appeared almost 3 thousand years ago. During excavations in settlements and cities of ancient Russia - Staraya Ladoga, Novgorod, Pskov - skates were found from the bones of the forelegs of horses. These skates had three holes - two for attaching the skate to the toe of the shoe and one for holding the skate at the heel. In the Netherlands, initially, the role of a ridge, along with animal bones, was played by a wooden shoe. Then metal runners were attached to such shoes.
In England during Shakespeare's time (until the beginning of the 16th century), people still skated on bone skates, not to mention Norway and Iceland, where they were held in high esteem until the end of the 19th century. But already from the XIV century they learned how to make wooden skates with a metal strip on a sliding surface.
From the 13th to the middle of the 18th century, skates served as a means of transportation for a person on frozen rivers, lakes and canals in northern countries; the skate was made from a wooden base, to which a runner of bronze or iron was first attached, and later from steel. The first to rivet skates to shoes was the Russian Emperor Peter I, who, building ships in Holland, became interested in skates. He immediately realized that skates and shoes should form a single whole. Wooden skates with an iron blade For four centuries, the wooden base of the skate, as well as the runner, changed mainly only in length and shape. The second half of the 19th century is characterized by the rapid development of speed skating throughout the world. Skates of new designs are beginning to appear in America, Canada, Norway, Sweden, Russia and other countries. Ice skating has become a favorite winter pastime, and skating clubs have begun to open up everywhere. In Russia, the first such club was opened in St. Petersburg in 1864 by the world-famous speed skater, the first unofficial world champion, Russian speed walker and figure skater A. Panshin. Simultaneously with the widespread use of skating and ice skating, their improvement was also going on. Until 1883, figure skaters and skaters rode all-metal short, heavy skates with a curved blade. Such skates, made by Tula craftsmen, were found during the construction of the Moscow Metro.
Norwegian runners A. Paulsen and K. Werner designed tubular ice skates in 1880. The atforms were screwed to the sole of the boot with six and four screws, respectively.
In 1892, the Norwegian H. Hagen proposed another innovation - a running skate consisting of a steel tube and a steel runner inserted into it. These skates made it possible to make a colossal step forward in the development of speed running; on such skates all the runners of the world run to the present day. A sensation was the appearance of a new model of skates made by the Dutch firms Viking and Raps. In 1996-1997. individual Dutch skaters began the competition season with a new model of skating. Belgian Bart WELDCAMP, winner of the 1997 World Championship in 10,000 meters, said: Slepskate is the future of speed skating.

Gaines ridge
The prototype of the modern figure skate is considered to be the ridge of D. Gaines. This model, in essence, has remained unchanged to this day under the name "Snow Maidens". The toe of this skate with a thick blade is steeply bent upward and has no teeth, so that you can skate on them not only on ice, but also on hard-packed, icy snow. Hence, in all likelihood, the Russian name for this widespread model originated. Snow Maidens are very handy for initial instruction in ice skating. The absence of teeth on the toe teaches a beginner skater to use exclusively the ribs of the skate for movement, while the significant curvature of his runner facilitates the control of the skate and disposes to skating along steep arcs.
Model U. Salkova retains all the main features of the Gaines skate, but has a fundamentally new detail - the teeth made on the toe of the skate. The appearance of the teeth reflected the increased complexity of the execution of figures, the need to demonstrate various stops, jumps, pirouettes on the toe, toe thrusts, compasses, stepping from toe to toe, etc. The emergence of a skate with three stands ( model N. Panin) was caused by technical considerations, namely, an increase in the strength of the ridge. The modern ridge does not contain any new details, design or operational innovations. Only the shape of the ridge, the thickness of the blade and the configuration of the teeth have undergone some changes. The skater's ridge has a thickness of 3-4 millimeters and is sharpened so that the lateral and lower surfaces of the blade form two sharp edges. The skate runner is rounded, and therefore any tilt of the body to the side causes a slip in an arc.

There are three types of skates used in figure skating:
A. Skates for the compulsory program;
B. Skates for the execution of the free program in both singles and pair skating.
C. Skates for sports ice dancing.
The figure skating skate consists of three parts: runner, sole and heel.
Blade the ridge is made of high quality carbon or alloy steel, more often chrome vanadium steel. Hardening, or carburizing, is done in such a way that the skate runner and the lower part of the side surfaces of the blade have the greatest hardness, while the rest remains "raw", that is, not so hard. Due to this, the skate, with a high hardness of the working part, retains the necessary elasticity and does not break when jumping. The blade of the skate is welded to two plates called the sole and heel of the skate. The latter have holes through which the skate is attached to the boot with special screws. In recent years, skates with replaceable blades have appeared. The blades can vary depending on the nature of the figures being performed and the state of the ice.
Configuration is critical runner skate. In the front part, the curvature is greatest, in the rear part it is slightly less, the most flat part of the runner is the middle one. The curvature of the skate runner from one part to another changes smoothly, so that when changing the sliding section, the track does not have a break. The height of the ridge blade is approximately 40-50 millimeters. This height, on the one hand, provides sufficient stability, and on the other hand, it allows you to perform figures with a large inclination of the body, without touching the ice with the sole of the boot. For the correct positioning of the center of gravity of the body above the ridge, the height of its front part is 2-4 millimeters less than the back. Until the 50s of our century, skaters performed all exercises on skates of the same type. Currently, the level of development of figure skating has increased so much that athletes needed slightly different skates for different types of skating. Nowadays single skaters use two pairs of skates - one for compulsory figures, others for free skating, and skaters performing in pair skating, only one for free skating. Each type of skate reflects the specifics of the compulsory program, free skating, ice dancing. The length of the skate blade depends on its purpose. For compulsory figures it is the largest, for free skating it is usually somewhat less, and the smallest for ice dancing, so that during the turns the dancers do not touch each other with their skates.
The skate runner is machined so that the bottom surface is slightly concave, forming a so-called groove, or groove. The presence of the groove makes the ribs of the skate sharper, thereby facilitating the execution of figures at a long stroke and with an incline. The groove diameter depends on the type of skate. The deepest is for free skating skates, where high sliding speed is used, rotations and jumps are performed that require strong pressure of the skate on the ice. Modern skates have slightly thinner blades than those used at the beginning of the century. If the blades of skates of D. Gaines, U. Salkov and N. Panin were up to 6 millimeters thick, then modern skates for compulsory figures and free skating are about 3-4 millimeters, and dance skates are even thinner - 2-3 millimeters. The location and configuration of the teeth are essential. In "school" skates, the lower tooth is sharpened from the sides to zero and therefore has the shape of a sharp wedge. Due to this, when sliding backward, the tooth, touching the ice, does not cause its significant scraping, which is completely unacceptable in obligatory figures. The lower tooth of "school" skates, in comparison with other types of skates, is slightly forward and raised, which allows you to slide on the front part of the skate without touching the ice with the tooth.

Skate point... It is better to make a point on a machine in which the whetstone rotates along the ridge blade, since in this case the final grinding of the runner surface is greatly simplified. Pedagogical observations and special studies carried out with figure skaters of various sports qualifications made it possible to establish that many skates of domestic brands are not well suited for performing compulsory figures. Very often errors in the microgeometry of the figure's track are obtained not through the fault of the athlete, but as a result of the absence of a special skate for the "school".
Skates for compulsory exercises must meet the following requirements:
Provide an optimal sliding mode in large circles in loopless figures and in small circles in a loop. "
Create the possibility of stable sliding on the middle part of the skate runner.
Provide body stability when performing loop turns.
Perform short-term rolling of the skate with a large amplitude from its middle back and forth and vice versa when performing triplets, brackets, hooks and hooks.
Boots. Initially, skates were attached to ordinary boots in one way or another only for the duration of skating. The idea of ​​attaching skates to boots tightly, according to legend, belongs to Peter the Great. In a book published in Dutch in 1848, there is a mention of the fact that the Russian emperor, building ships in Holland, was carried away by skates, and the idea came to him that it would be more convenient to have skates fastened to the boots all the time. As a result of this innovation, shoes attached to skates lost their everyday functions, and shoes specially adapted for ice skating began to appear. Modern figure skating boots are made from dense leather to the exact size of the foot. A characteristic feature - high tops, designed to prevent "breaking" of the foot in case of strong lateral inclination of the body. The stiffness of the boots depends on their purpose. Most well stiff boots are made for free skating. The tops of the boots of male athletes performing in pair skating should be especially strong, since when performing supports, the load on the boots exceeds the total weight of the partners. The toe and heel are reinforced with firm leather from the inside to provide the required rigidity. The bootlegs, so that they do not lose the ability to fit the leg tightly and have sufficient strength, are made of two layers of leather, between which a layer of canvas is laid
Due to the significant load during the execution of jumps, in free skating shoes, the heel is usually reinforced with a thin tube passed from top to bottom through its center. Boots should also be equipped with a wide tongue, into which a thick (0.5 centimeter) layer of porous rubber or foam is sewn in, and the upper part of the lacing with hooks to facilitate putting on the boots.
Sticking skates to boots. A large number of failures for beginner skaters are caused by improper installation of skates. A sign of this is chronic crushing of the feet, scraping of ice when performing simple arcs, as well as curvature of the boot tops. For beginners and young skaters, we recommend positioning the skate relative to the sole of the boot such that the back of the blade coincides with the middle of the sole of the boot, and the front is pushed inward by about half the thickness of the blade. When attaching skates, it should be borne in mind that for skaters with an X-shaped legs, the skates must be moved inward, and for those with a 0-shaped shape, outward from their usual location. For master skaters, an individual fit of the skates to the boot is required. Most skate models have special mounting holes in the heel and sole that allow some movement of the skate relative to the boot. Through successive tests, the position of the skate is determined separately for each leg. And only after that they are finally attached to all sheepskin coats. The skates should be screwed to the sole with copper or other stainless screws. It is recommended to pre-pierce the holes with a sharp awl and screw the screws, lubricating them with soap. The screws must not be allowed to twist: in this case, the fastening may be fragile, and this creates a considerable danger for the skier.

Historical facts about ice skating
- The Canterbury monk Stephanius, who in 1174 created the Chronicle of the Noble City of London, was the first to mention skating in literature. Here is how he described the winter fun: “When a large swamp, washing from the north of the city rampart at Moorfield, freezes over, whole groups of young people go there to play sports on ice. Some, striding as wide as possible, glide quickly. Others, more experienced in ice games, tie the tibia of animals to their feet and, holding sharp-tipped sticks in their hands, at times push them off the ice and rush as fast as a bird in the air or a spear launched from a ballista ... " the monk wrote, but, like many journalists, he apparently liked to compose: is it possible to run on skates at the speed of a spear? But let's forgive the exaggeration of the ancient recluse. We will be grateful to him for his work.
- In the British Museum are exhibited bone skates, which were skated almost two thousand years ago. These skates were found in the last century.
- And in 1967, on the banks of the Southern Bug and a dry estuary not far from Odessa, archaeologists discovered the oldest skates ever found. These skates belonged to the Cimerians, a nomadic tribe that lived 3200 years ago in the Northern Black Sea region. The Cimerians have been ice skating since the Bronze Age. In terms of age, they surpass the "inventory" of the ancient Dutch and Danes in Scandinavia, skates appeared only in the Viking Age.
- Over time, both the skates themselves and the method of movement on them have improved. The bones of the animals were replaced with wooden blocks. First, their surface was polished, then metal strips were attached to it.
- In the 13th century, in Holland and Iceland, skates appeared with an iron runner bent in front, inserted into a wooden block. They were tied to shoes with belts. And Russian craftsmen carved the curved toe of a ridge in the form of a horse's head, hence the name “horse-ki”.
- Steel skates, tightly screwed to shoes, were made at the Tula Arms Factory by order of Peter I. And in 1908, the first figure skating champion Nikolai Panin appeared in Russia. He also became the only owner of a gold medal of the Olympic Games in pre-revolutionary Russia and a five-time champion of our country in this sport. Since then, we have firmly held the world championship in figure skating, and the Russian school is rightfully considered the strongest.
- The first speed skating club opened in 1604 in the Scottish city of Edinburgh. In 1763, the athletes of foggy Albion held the first international friendly meeting with American walkers.
- More than three hundred years ago, the English diplomat Carlyle, who visited Moscow, wrote: "The favorite winter pastime of Muscovites is ice skating." And in the works of A.S. Pushkin, L.N. Tolstoy, A.I. Kuprin mentioned this more than once.

Figure skating is a spectacular sport and extremely popular. Its history goes back many years, and its popularity all over the world is increasing every day. We present to your attention a selection of the most interesting facts from the most colorful winter sport.

· Figure skating is really an extremely effective sport, a bright show is created not only by the most complex and spectacular elements, but also by beautiful bright costumes. So, a short skirt for athletes appeared in the nineteenth century in England. The culprit was Princess Mary, who introduced a new costume into fashion. From now on, a half-length dress was chosen for skating.

· Contrary to logic, the first skates were found not in Holland, but on the coast of the Southern Bug, which is near Odessa. The find, made of horse bone, dates back to a very distant period of the Bronze Age.

· Many people wonder why the main apparatus of this sport is called skates? Everything is actually very simple: in ancient times, the blade of a skate, or rather their prototype, was decorated with the head of a horse.

· The first official figure skating competition rules were established in England. The obligatory figures were also defined here. Moreover, the first ice skating clubs appeared in Edinburgh already in the eighteenth century.

· But in Russia, skates appeared thanks to Peter I, who brought them from Europe. The emperor came up with a special method of attaching directly to the boots.

· The beginning of Russian figure skating can be safely dated to 1865, when the first skating rink would have been opened in the Yusupov Garden. And ten years later, the first competitions were held on it.

· Great writers were also connoisseurs of ice skating. So, Goethe, in his conversations with poets, spoke about the advantages of poetry along with the advantages of figure skating elements. Another famous writer, Walter Scott, would have had a similar passion for figure skating, which made him initiate the first amateur competitions. Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, in his novel Anna Karenina, describes many scenes associated with skaters at the rink. The writer was a frequent visitor to the skating rink, after which he projected his impressions on the pages of his work.

· Sophia Kovalevskaya, a great mathematician, skated masterly. She got up on them already at an honorable age, which did not prevent her from taking sliding lessons and mastering the technique at a high level.

· Elements in figure skating also have their own names and history of origin. So, the crossover jump at the beginning had the name "flying three". A number of some drawings, including the three, required interruption of the track, which means jumping. This jump could also be called waltz or "cadet". But the rotations were called "knots" because they left a similar trail on the ice after they were performed. Thus, when performing the rotation, it was said to "tie the knots". But the Oler jump owes its name to the Austrian figure skater Euler, who became the first performer of this element. The famous jump toe loop, in its translation, has two roots, meaning "toe" and "loop", therefore, this is a jump from a toe loop. There is also the Salchow jump, named after the ten-time World Champion Ulrich Salchow.

· The first set of rules dates back to 1772, when Lieutenant Jones of Great Britain published a Treatise on Ice Skating, where he described all the famous figures.

· American Jackson Heinz is rightfully considered the founder of modern figure skating. Touring skating rinks in Europe and in Russia, he aroused admiration, giving an incentive to develop sports in other countries.

· Few people know, but in addition to single skating, doubles and ice dancing, there is a fourth type of discipline - skating fours. The competition is attended by representatives of pair skating, only four of them. At the moment, the leadership in this type of performance belongs to the Canadian and American teams.

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Ice skating is one of the favorite winter activities. Everyone, young and old, put on boots with iron runners and stand on the ice, where, laughing merrily, they cut circles. Probably sooner or later everyone in his life wondered how skates appeared? Skates have changed since the creation of the first of them, nowadays skates are called: "sports equipment, which is a collection of special shoes with blades attached to them." The history of skates goes back to the distant past, to the origins of the creation of their prototype.

The first bone skates Historians believe that the very first skaters were the Cimmerians: they rode on bone runners that were attached to their legs (second half of the 8th century BC).

Much later, such an interesting testimony was recorded as the notes of the monk Stephanius, made already in the XII century. The monk wrote: “When a large swamp, washing from the north the city rampart at Moorefield, freezes over, whole groups of young people go there. Some, striding as wide as possible, simply slide quickly. Others, more experienced in ice games, tie the tibia of animals to their feet and, holding sharp-tipped sticks in their hands, at times push them off the ice and rush as fast as a bird in the air or a spear launched from a ballista ... ".

This was the first literary mention of skates, as well as evidence that bone skates were still in use and, moreover, had been used for a long time. The first skates were the prototype of skis, but they did not have sharp edges. The repulsion took place with the help of special sticks. Still, movement on the ice-covered surface became faster and more confident.

Another interesting fact is that the devices for moving on ice were carved from the bones of completely different animals, and in China they even moved on ice at the expense of bamboo trunks attached to the legs; in Siberia, for example, they skated on walrus tusks, and at Borovoye Lake in Kazakhstan they found skates made of a horse's shin bone. In a museum located in London, there is such a ridge - a long sharpened bone with a slot for laces.

Wooden skates

As time went on, not only the skates themselves were improved, but also the movement on them, the bone from which they were made replaced wood, and the sticks used as an auxiliary tool were completely abandoned. The first wooden skates appeared around XIII, initially their surface was polished, and a century later metal strips were attached. At first, skates were made with one runner. But already in the 15th century, skating devices with two runners appeared. From the 14th century to the 17th century, they were made of wood and attached metal runners to the sole. with ropes and belts. Wooden skates were usually decorated with figurines - images of a horse's head - and this is how the name “skates” appeared.

Skate maker So who is the creator of such a wonderful invention that made life easier for people for a long time, and later became an excellent entertainment and turned into such a spectacular sport as figure skating? Unfortunately, there is no unequivocal answer to this question, perhaps we need to pay tribute to the Cimmerians, who were the first to create the prototype of skates and began to use it for practical purposes, perhaps it is worth referring to sources that report that the first person to connect the blade and the shoe together, became the great emperor Peter the First. While building ships in a Dutch forest port, he became interested in speed skating, creating a device closest to what we call skates today, and thus giving impetus to the creation of figure skating. There is also an equally interesting version, claiming that the creation of such an interesting device belongs to the American Jackson Hayes, and that it was he who tightly connected the shoes with a steel blade.

But we know for sure that the first skates for running on them with a thin blade made of steel were invented in the 80s of the XIX century by the Norwegians K. Werner and A. Paulsen. The answer to the question about the creator of this very useful invention is still not found, it can be assumed that skates are the end result of the efforts and embodiment of the most incredible ideas of various people over many centuries.

Daria Trubitsina

Figure skating is one of the most beautiful sports. From itself it presents a lot of difficulties and patience. It is necessary to move on the ice and, at the same time, perform all kinds of movements. A person can change his disposition as his heart desires. Also doing all sorts of difficult elements.

Skating can be both singles and pairs. In singles, a woman or a man, skates alone, that is, without a partner. And in pair skating, a man and a woman dance together. Moreover, the guy has to lead the girl.

When did figure skating come about?

In the field of sports, skating began its development back in the 19th century. The territory of this wonderful sport is Holland. That was a long time ago.

As for all kinds of competitions, they originate in 1891. Performances were carried out both in pair and single skating. Since that time, a variety of schools began to form, where this sport was taught. All students of the educational institution, without fail, had to perform movements, otherwise they were called figures. Free skating was also in demand. It included a variety of shapes that young athletes tried to perform. All this took place before the main competition. Athletes were allowed to make their own innovations to the program.

There is one more kind of the described sport. These are sports dances. Very beautiful and smooth movements, students learn from early childhood. In such dances, several people can participate.

When did figure skating appear in Russia?

The whole history of figure skating in Russia dates back to the era of the tsar. According to some facts, it is known that when he returned to Russia from European countries, he brought skates with him.

Today, skates are known practically all over the world. As a sport, skating has appeared in Russia since the middle of the 19th century. Then the very first skating rink was opened.

At first glance, it seems that it is so easy and simple, you just have to learn how to skate. But when a person gets on the ice, all the lightness disappears. Indeed, in addition to just being able to skate, you need to feel very confident on the ice, as well as simultaneously perform various elements of dancing. Which is not very easy. A lot of work is invested in this business. And it is difficult to learn figure skating without breaking an arm or a leg. But there are exceptions.

Figure skating is one of the most impressive, difficult, and common winter types of the variety. Every year, all kinds of competitions are held, both in pair and single skating. Significant awards are presented.

But in order to engage in this sport, and achieve high achievements, you need to choose for yourself just such a difficult and at the same time, unusual life-life of an athlete.