Figure Skating at the Winter Olympics
Figure skating was included in the 1908 Summer Olympics in London and the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp, prior to the introduction of the Winter Olympics. It has been on the program of all official Winter Olympic Games.
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The five figure skating events are Men's singles, Ladies' singles, Pairs, Mixed Team Event and Ice Dancing. The figure skating team event was a new event added in 2014.
Trivia
- Another figure skating event, Men's special figures, was on the program only once, at the 1908 Summer Games.
- At the St Moritz Winter Olympics in 1928, Gillis Grafström of Sweden won the last of his three consecutive gold medals in figure skating. He also became the first person to win a medal in the same event in Summer and Winter Olympics, winning figure skating golds at the 1920 Olympics and in the same event at the first Winter Olympics in 1924.
- Norwegian Sonja Henie was only 11 years old when she first skated in the Olympics in 1924 in the figure skating event, placing last in the eight-woman field. She would equal the feat of Gillis Grafström, winning the first of her three consecutive gold medals in figure skating at the 1928 Games at the age of 15.
- In Sapporo in 1972, Ondrej Nepala of Czechoslovakia, who had competed at the 1964 Olympics as a 13-year-old, won the men's figure skating title.
- America's Dorothy Hamill and Britain's John Curry won golds in figure skating in Innsbruck 1976.
- The first black athlete to win a Winter Olympic medal was Debi Thomas of the United States, finishing third in figure skating at the 1988 Games in Calgary.
- The 1994 figure-skating competition was dominated by the events of Tonya and Nancy. In the end Nancy Kerrigan won the silver behind Ukraine's Oksana Baiul.
- In Nagano in 1998, 15-year-old American figure skater Tara Lipinski became the youngest athlete to win a gold medal at the Winter Games. In 2014, Russian Yulia Lipnitskaya won gold when she was 6 days younger.
- In 2002, there was a huge scandal over judging in the figure-skating when the Russian pair of Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze were awarded gold on a 5-4 verdict ahead of Canadians Jamie Sale and David Pelletier, who by all other accounts were the best performers. Eventually, the IOC awarded a second gold to the Canadians.
- A team event was added to the figure skating program in 2014, requiring the competition to start a day before the Opening ceremony. This was the first time in the history of the Winter Olympics that competitions will be held before the Opening ceremony.
- In the 2014 figure skating event was won by teenage Yuzuru Hanyu from Japan. He was the first Japanese man to ever win a gold medal in figure skating, and his score of 101.45 points set a world record.
- Canadian figure skater Eric Radford and Meagan Duhamel won the team figure skating event in 2018, with Radford becoming the first openly gay man to win gold at the Winter Olympics.
- Figure skaters at the 2026 Olympics will be required to be at least 17 years old. This rule was brought in to protect child skaters after the controversy that engulfed Russia's 15-year-old Kamila Valieva at the Beijing 2022 Games.
Related Pages
- See also Ice Dancing at the Winter Olympics
- Figure Skating at the Summer Olympics
- Figure skating Olympics poll.
- Figure Skating Videos
- More Winter Olympics Sports
- Winter Olympics main page.
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