Speed Skating - History

History

The roots of speed skating date back over a millennium to Scandinavia, Northern Europe and the Netherlands, where the natives added bones to their shoes and used them to travel on frozen rivers, canals and lakes. It was much later, in the 16th century, that people started seeing skating as fun and perhaps even a sporting activity. Later, in Norway, King Eystein Magnusson, later King Eystein I of Norway, boasts of his skills racing on ice legs.

However, skating and speed skating was not limited to the Netherlands and Scandinavia; in 1592, a Scotsman designed a skate with a iron blade. It was iron-bladed skates that led to the spread of skating and, in particular, speed skating. By 1642, the first official skating club, The Skating Club Of Edinburgh, was born, and, in 1763, the world saw its first official speed skating race, on the Fens in England organized by the National Ice Skating Association. While in the Netherlands, people began touring the waterways connecting the 11 cities of Friesland, a challenge which eventually led to the Elfstedentocht.

By 1850, North America had discovered a love of the sport, and, indeed, North America went on to develop the all-steel blade, which was both lighter and sharper. The Netherlands came back to the fore in 1889 and organized the very first world championships, and, subsequently, the ISU (International Skating Union) was born in 1892. Subsequently, by the start of the 20th century, skating and indeed speed skating had come into its own as a major popular sporting activity.

Read more about this topic:  Speed Skating

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    It would be naive to think that peace and justice can be achieved easily. No set of rules or study of history will automatically resolve the problems.... However, with faith and perseverance,... complex problems in the past have been resolved in our search for justice and peace. They can be resolved in the future, provided, of course, that we can think of five new ways to measure the height of a tall building by using a barometer.
    Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)

    One classic American landscape haunts all of American literature. It is a picture of Eden, perceived at the instant of history when corruption has just begun to set in. The serpent has shown his scaly head in the undergrowth. The apple gleams on the tree. The old drama of the Fall is ready to start all over again.
    Jonathan Raban (b. 1942)

    No matter how vital experience might be while you lived it, no sooner was it ended and dead than it became as lifeless as the piles of dry dust in a school history book.
    Ellen Glasgow (1874–1945)