History and Background of Olympic Figure Skating

Title: History of Olympic Figure Skating

Description: Figure skating is a mainstay of the Winter Olympic Games. It is sometimes controversial and always fascinating to watch. Today we are joined by Ryan Stevens of the Skate Guard Blog to discuss the past, present and future of Olympic figure skating.

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Ryan Stevens of the Skate Guard Blog
http://skateguard1.blogspot.com/

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Music Provided by:
“Crossing the Chasm” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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Begin Transcript:

Thank you again for listening to Beyond the Big Screen podcast. We are a member of the Parthenon Podcast network. Of course, a big thanks goes out to Ryan Stevens of the Skate Guard Blog. Links to learn more about Ryan and Skate Guard can be found at http://skateguard1.blogspot.com/ or in the Show Notes.
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Another way to support Beyond the big screen is to leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. These reviews really help me know what you think of the show and help other people learn about Beyond the Big screen. More about the Parthenon Podcast Network can be found at Parthenonpodcast.com. You can learn more about Beyond the Big Screen, great movies and stories so great they should be movies on various social media platforms by searching for A to z history. Links to all this and more can be found at beyond the big screen dot com. I thank you for joining me again, Beyond the big Screen.
, [00:00:00] this is beyond the big screen podcast with your host, Steve Guerra. Welcome back to this very special bonus episode of beyond the big screen today, we aren’t specifically talking about a movie, but instead we’re revisiting a topic we discussed in a previous episode, figure skating through the movie.
Hello London. The 23rd winter Olympics and PR Chang, South Korea are upon us. And I am very happy to be joined by Ryan Stevens of the skate guard blog to give us a little primer on Olympic figure skating. Thank you so much for joining us today, Ryan. Oh, you’re most welcome. It’s a pleasure to speak with you.
Again, Ryan Stevens is a former competitive figure skater and C F S a skate Canada. Judge. He’s been writing about figure skating history since [00:01:00] 2013. Ryan has media credentials with skate Canada covering the 2016 Canadian tire national skating championships on Halifax, as well as conducting interviews with many of the top figure skater.
Past and present. And in June, 2017, Ryan released a full length biography of British actress figure skater and dancer. Belita Jepson Turner, who is a contemporary of Sonja. Henie, who we discussed in the hello London episode, which will be linked to an MES in the show notes for this episode, as well as the links to escape.
So I highly suggest you go back and listen to that episode because it was a lot of fun and very informative before we get rolling. Can you just tell us a little bit about yourself and your blog? Absolutely. So I’m based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. I’m here in Canada. Um, for those of you that are down in the states.
[00:02:00] And, uh, I write about skating history all around the world and I kind of bounce a little bit. I bounced around a little bit. I released three blogs a week covering a whole range of topics, everything from, um, How skating might’ve developed in a certain country to a biography of a skater to look back at an event task.
So we just kind of bumped, uh, bumped around a little bit. And, uh, it’s really a lot of fun. Yeah. That sounds like it, it gives you a lot of avenues to discover and explore different areas of the. Absolutely. Now, can you just give us maybe a little bit of history or context to figure skating as an Olympic sport?
Certainly. So the first time that figure skating was actually included in the Olympic games was [00:03:00] in 1908. It was included in the summer Olympic games in London, England, and, uh, There were three categories, uh, pardon me, four categories. Uh, there were men’s and women’s single skating pair skating and a category that was only ever held at that first Olympics called special figures where skaters would trace out, uh, very intricate designs on the ice.
Uh, they created themselves and that was only held at the 1908 Olympics. Um, The figure skating was included in the 1920 summer Olympics as well. And it was first included in the winter Olympics in 1924. And it’s been probably the most popular if not, um, one of the most popular, but I like to think the most popular sport in the winter Olympics.
Um, [00:04:00] since then, uh, At winter Olympics, uh, in 2014 in Sochi Russia, a new event, uh, was at it. To, uh, the, a lot of figure skating events and that was a team event. And, uh, that’s going to be contested again in Korea. And it’s a really interesting and unique format that I think will bring, um, a lot of excitement to the.
To the roster of competitions that everybody will be seeing, you’ve shown us how the events, some of the events have changed. There’s some events that are no longer a part of Olympic figure skating. And then there’s some events that have been added as a part of maybe the strategy of the game or how it’s judged.
How has that evolved over the course of the year, since the Olympics have started?[00:05:00]
Well, um, maybe how more, so how, I guess it plays into judging, how has it changed from maybe more of a, um, like technically, maybe how has it changed? Well, technically it’s changed in a lot of ways. Um, if you look at, so right now, uh, if you don’t count this new team event and you take into account single scale, Pair skating and ice dancing, which was added to the Olympics, uh, in 1976 for the first time.
Those are the, those are the four main disciplines men’s and women’s singles pairs and ice stamps. And all four of those disciplines have, uh, changed from. The change their formats from when they first started in the game. So in the single skating, uh, used to see school [00:06:00] figures where a skaters would skate out, would trace out, uh, set patterns on the ice and then free skating pairs getting started with just a free skate and ice dancing started with compulsory dances.
Now you won’t find school figures at all. And there’s no figures in figure skating. Um, in single skating pairs, skating has had a short program at it and the compulsory dances are gone from ice dance. And now you’ll see a short dance and a free dance. So all four of the disciplines have changed their formats since they were first introduced to the games.
And what you’ll see are a. A short program and a free skate in the singles and the pairs, and then the short dance, the free dance. And I stamped now. So that might be, might be able to hook them using if you’ve ever seen the skating before, uh, in the games, [00:07:00] but basically in every discipline, you’re going to see.
All of the skaters twice. If they’re going to come out once before I’m a short program or a short dance, and they’re going to come out a second time, perform a free skate or a free dance. That’s what I love. That’s something like it’s called figure skating, but the actual event that it, the name is based on isn’t even a part of the event anymore.
It is not. I mean, I, I think skating has evolved, uh, to such a technical level now that, um, it should almost be called, um, I don’t know, ice jumping or something, but, um, but, uh, no, there are no more figures in figure skating, at least at the Olympics. Now, as you as a professional and are fishy and Otto and somebody who’s.
Into skating and figure skating. What are some of the high points you think, um, [00:08:00] that you’ve seen in previous Olympics? Oh my goodness. It’s too numerous to even mention Amy. One of, one of my favorite and Olympic memories, uh, was from the 1988 Olympic games in Calgary, Alberta. When Elizabeth Manley, uh, she wasn’t.
Even expect it to be one of the challengers for the top two spots at all. And she’d gone through so much in the years leading up to deal with the games. Um, and. It was supposed to be a showdown between, uh, an American skater, Debbie Thomas, and, uh, an east German skater, calorie and Yvette. And it was called the battle of the Carmens because both skaters were skating to music from B’s A’s Carmen and.
Elizabeth man. We came out of nowhere. I had the free skate of her life, [00:09:00] uh, or the standing ovation brought the house down and she won the, she didn’t win the gold medal, but she wasn’t a free skate. And, um, that, that moment stands out in my mind as being one of them. The biggest, uh, I don’t know, biggest Olympic moments that I’ve ever seen and another would definitely be, um, Jayden’s horrible.