History
The first rollerskis were built in the mid-1930s in Italy and North Europe.
In the early 1950s, when cross-country skiing started to evolve to a serious competition sport, the necessity for good summer training grew. All around the world from 1950s to 1970s people experimented with skis on wheels.
In the 1970s something of a standard emerged and the first races took place. At this time all rollerskis had one wheel in front and two wheels at the back. The metal frame was between 70 and 100 centimetres (2'4" and 3'4") long.
Athletes felt they could start to engage themselves in competitions. In 1976, Giustino Del Vecchio, an air pilot, established a record in Monza by doing 240.5 km in 24 hours thanks to the skirolls he had designed, using material and technologies from the aircraft industry; narrow solid wheels with hard tread, reverse lock-up ball bearings to enable push forward.
In the beginning the skis were developed with one wheel in front and two wheels behind.The introduction of skating (free technique) in cross-country skiing implied some changes in the use of materials and training methods, which consequently produced an impact on rollerskis (maybe changes were started by rollerskis, with which skating is much easier). From 3 to 2 wheels, much lighter and easier to use, rollerskis could be used both for the classic style and skating. Paolo Miorin, with his famous Skirollo, can be considered the inventor of the innovative 2-wheels rollerskis.
The World Record for the greatest number of roller skiers in one place was established in the Gatineau Park, Chelsea Quebec, Canada 2 October 2010.
Read more about this topic: Nordic Blading
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“We aspire to be something more than stupid and timid chattels, pretending to read history and our Bibles, but desecrating every house and every day we breathe in.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The myth of independence from the mother is abandoned in mid- life as women learn new routes around the mother—both the mother without and the mother within. A mid-life daughter may reengage with a mother or put new controls on care and set limits to love. But whatever she does, her child’s history is never finished.”
—Terri Apter (20th century)
“... that there is no other way,
That the history of creation proceeds according to
Stringent laws, and that things
Do get done in this way, but never the things
We set out to accomplish and wanted so desperately
To see come into being.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)