Artistic roller skating is a sport similar to figure skating but where contestants run on roller skates instead of ice skates. Within artistic roller skating there are several disciplines:
- figures (similar to compulsory or "school" figures on ice)
- freestyle (individuals performing jumps and spins)
- pairs (a subset of freestyle with two people performing jumps, spins, and lifts)
- dance (couple)
- solo dance
- precision (team skating, similar to synchronized skating on ice)
- show teams
Artistic roller skaters use either quad or inline skates, though quad skates are more traditional and significantly more common. Generally quad and inline skaters compete in separate events and not against each other. Inline figure skating has been included in the world championships since 2002 in Wuppertal, Germany.
The sport looks very similar to its counterpart on ice, and although there are some differences, many ice skaters started in roller skating or vice versa. Famous champion ice skaters who once competed in roller skating include Brian Boitano, Tara Lipinski and Marina Kielmann . Roller figure skating is often considered to be more difficult because the ice allows the skater to draw a deep, solid edge to push off from when performing jumps such as a lutz or an axel. Also roller skates are generally heavier than their ice equivalents, making jumping harder.
Famous quotes containing the words artistic, roller and/or skating:
“[The pleasures of writing] correspond exactly to the pleasures of reading, the bliss, the felicity of a phrase is shared by writer and reader: by the satisfied writer and the grateful reader, or—which is the same thing—by the artist grateful to the unknown force in his mind that has suggested a combination of images and by the artistic reader whom his combination satisfies.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“To believe that Russia has got rid of the evils of capitalism takes a special kind of mind. It is the same kind of mind that believes that a Holy Roller has got rid of sin.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“In skating over thin ice, our safety is in our speed.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)