Not many viewers figure skating know what goes on behind the scenes. Professional choreography on ice requires a lot of strength, and to become a professional in it, you should start practicing from the age of 3. But even if you started skating much later, you still have every chance to take part in competitions and non-qualifying championships. You can start practicing both in groups and individually - with a figure skating coach.
This sport will give you a lot of positive emotions, improve your posture and help develop grace. In addition, figure skating will help you gain confidence in yourself and your abilities, improve reaction, develop team spirit, make new friends and like-minded people.
To date, figure skating is represented by the following types:
- synchronous (group and pair),
- dance Sport,
- single skating.
Synchronized skating
This is the youngest and most dynamically developing direction. A team consisting of athletes of both sexes can have 16-20 people. At the same time, they all perform elements synchronously. The technique for performing one or another element is the same as for single athletes. In synchronized ice skating, the rules prohibit lifts and jumps with more than 1 turn, etc.
Dance Sport
Here, the main emphasis is on dance ligaments. Given the almost complete absence of jumps or emissions, this is the most spectacular view skating. According to the rules, a long separation of partners is not allowed. Participants show compulsory and free dance. At the same time, the judges' assessments take into account not only the level of skill of the participants, but also how well the costumes, music, and the image itself are thought out.
Single skating
Allows the participant (woman or man) to fully demonstrate their mastery of the basic elements. At the same time, the level of a skater can be determined not only by the complexity of the elements themselves, but also by their number in the program, the quality of performance. At the same time, gracefulness, smoothness of movements and a sense of rhythm with which he performs the program are of great importance when evaluating a participant. The competitions have two stages, in the first part the athlete shows a mandatory program, in the second - an arbitrary one.
Pair skating
Here, special attention is paid to the ability of skaters to perform all elements synchronously and correctly. IN pair skating The competition is held in 2 stages.
Journalist Andrei Simonenko knows everything about figure skating. Especially for the Team Russia website, he compiled a detailed guide on how to start understanding figure skating - and get the most out of watching it. Lutz, sheepskin coat, twizzle - from today these words will become part of your vocabulary.
You should immediately warn: figure skating can be watched without any guide. Moreover, many experts advise doing something like this without bothering with unnecessary information.
Why do your readers need to know what twizzles are? - asked a few years ago in response to my request to help in compiling such a "guide" one world champion. - Let them just watch people dance.
But if you are still inquisitive enough to try to understand how a lutz differs from a flip, the first assessment from the second, and what kind of beast this is - GOE, then this text is for you. It is built on the principle of answering the most common (and not so) questions. So…
What is the difference between a short program and a free program?
Good question. In fact, nothing but duration. A short program in three disciplines lasts 2 minutes 40 seconds (dancers have 10 seconds longer), free program in dances and for women it takes 4 minutes, for sports couples and men - 4 and a half minutes each. And so these are the same elements in the programs that the skaters try to perform with the maximum degree of musicality and choreography.
And how is this musicality and choreography assessed?
If this question had to be answered in one word, the word would be: subjective. Yes, even though the new judging system is designed, as one of its authors, the current ISU Vice President Alexander Lakernik, once noted, “to check harmony with algebra”, it is not always possible to do this. But we believe in fairness, so here is - very briefly - how the skaters' performances are judged.
The total score for the rental is the sum of two ratings. The first is technical. It is obtained by adding the "cost" of the elements of the program. The more difficult the element, the more points the skater gets for it. Of course, the quality of the performance of the element is also evaluated. To do this, the judges adjust the scores for each element, awarding bonuses or, conversely, lowering the score.
That same musicality and choreography, as well as basic gliding skills, composition and the presence of connecting steps, are included in the program component score - or, to use the outdated terms of the 6.0 system, the artistry score. Nine judges give scores from 0 to 10 (in increments of 0.25), the extreme ones are discarded, the rest are added up, added to the technical score - and the result is the sum of points for the performance. Who scored more, he won.
Men, women, couples... Isn't it all dancing?
No. Of course, what single skaters and sports couples do on the ice can in some way be called dance. But in figure skating, this term has its own meaning. Ice dancing is a discipline in which the main thing is to demonstrate the skill of skating. To do this, the dancers do not perform jumps or acrobatic lifts, but on the other hand, they saturate the programs with a variety of steps to the maximum. We can list their names and bombard you with words like "twizzles", "mohawks", "choctaws" and so on and so forth. But when I start doing this, I again remember the answer of that same world champion. Look better how they dance - at speed, gracefully, characteristically. Determine the champion of your hearts. Especially since - this is the question of subjectivity - to understand by what criteria real champions were determined, even experts are sometimes not capable.
What are you talking about - dishonest refereeing?
Well, in figure skating there really is one common joke: "The judges judge honestly - as agreed." But it's more about the fact that each arbiter evaluates the same element differently based on his understanding of figure skating - and the result is sometimes very unexpected results. By the way, you can be convinced of this by studying the referee protocols - after each tournament they are posted on the ISU website in the public domain. You see, one judge gave +2 for the jump, that is, he considered it good, and the other one has -2 - that is, a bad mark. And according to the rules, the referee is not obliged to explain to the skater why he gave this or that point. Estimates are taken for granted - and protests for refereeing are not accepted.
But the judges at least do not confuse the jumps?
No, all the more so, special people, the so-called technical team, are engaged in determining the type of jump and the number of its revolutions. Learning to distinguish between jumps is not very difficult - just a couple of hours to watch figure skating with a specialist.
It is also possible to tell in words how one jump differs from another. This is what we'll do.
First, it is worth highlighting the axel - a jump named after Axel Paulsen, the figure skater from Denmark who invented it. If at the moment of repulsion, when performing all other jumps, the skater is with his back in the direction of movement, then on the axel he jumps in front. Therefore, the axel is always characterized by a "half" in the number of its revolutions. Axel in 0.5 turns is called a "flip" jump, then there are axels in 1.5, 2.5 and 3.5 turns. Axel in 4.5 turns has not yet been performed by a single skater. There were attempts in training - for example, on youtube there is a video of an axel in 4.5 turns performed by the Russian figure skater Artur Dmitriev Jr. But at best, the jump turned out to be under-rotated. And for undercooling, the score is reduced - and decently.
Now let's move on to the jump, the name of which is often played up with wits. “I went out on the ice in a triple sheepskin coat,” they joke, not knowing that the name of this jump did not come from clothes at all. Toe loop - this is the name of the sheepskin coat in English, which means "turn around the foot." You can distinguish a sheepskin coat like this: at the moment of repulsion, the skater hits the ice with his free leg, makes a certain number of revolutions in the air and then lands on the other leg.
Here it is worth clarifying at once that Olympic Games ah you will mostly see three and four turn jumps. If a skater suddenly performs a one-turn jump, he will be very upset, because this will mean that he has made a “butterfly”. This entomological term refers to the situation when an athlete goes on a jump and pushes off the ice - but then something goes wrong, and he, opening up ahead of time, lands with fewer revolutions than he planned. It is clear that a skater will not get a good mark for a “butterfly” - no matter how beautiful and elegant it may be.
The sheepskin coat is considered the easiest jump - for the reason that it is performed most naturally. The rest of the jumps - with different "sub-sub-sub-folds". For example salchow. This jump is next in difficulty to the sheepskin coat and is named after Ulrich Salchow, a Swedish figure skater, Olympic champion 1908. During its execution, the skater swings his free leg, as if twisting himself before pushing up. Salchow can be identified just by this swing - the leg, as it were, describes a semicircle.
The salchow is followed by the rittberger in complexity. It is named after the German figure skater Werner Rittberger, but English-speaking experts often call it loop (loop). When entering the loop, the skater does not make any auxiliary movements, but crosses his legs and pushes off. It is easiest to recognize the rittberger just by this characteristic crossing.
Finally, the two remaining jumps - flip and lutz - are very similar in that the skaters create additional difficulties for themselves when performing them. Both are performed from the rear, both are repulsed from the same foot, on which the landing then takes place. And the difficulty is that the skater's skate must be tilted at the moment of repulsion - in fact, this is how these jumps are recognized. Lutz is performed from the outside edge, and flip - from the inside. The first is named after the Austrian figure skater Alois Lutz, and the second is named after the characteristic “jump” (in English flip) before the jump, when the athlete abruptly turns himself 180 degrees.
Here it is worth noting that this very tilt of the skate at the moment of repulsion is so fundamental that for technical errors on the lutz and flip, the skaters are additionally fined, marking in the protocol that the edge is either “wrong” or “unclear”.
Lutz is considered the most difficult jump in figure skating. Since the best skaters on the planet have mastered jumps in four turns (and they haven’t even gotten to five yet), then, accordingly, the most “expensive” element in terms of value in points is the quadruple lutz. Just a few years ago, this jump was considered unique, and now it is performed by many leaders. Although not all - for example, two-time champion Spaniard Javier Fernandez does not make the world.
Hispanic? World champion in figure skating???
Yes. Gone are the days when skaters from a limited set of countries competed for medals. Fernandez, however, is rather unique, but there are unusual tendencies. For example, over the past two decades, Asians have progressed very powerfully. In the 80s and 90s of the last century, the words “Chinese skater” were condescendingly smiled, and now even the Filipino is not surprised. Not to mention the Japanese, who have occupied a very strong leadership niche in single skating.
With single skating, it’s pretty clear, but what happens in doubles?
In doubles, as you might guess, people ride in pairs. They also perform the elements single skating, but either in parallel - moreover, parallelism is evaluated, or jointly (this applies to rotations). And there are also acrobatic supports - unlike dance duets, where you can’t lift a partner above the shoulder.
Figure skating — speed skating sports, refers to complex coordination sports. The main idea is to move an athlete or a pair of athletes on skates on ice with changes in the direction of sliding and performing additional elements (rotation, jumps, combinations of steps, lifts, etc.) to the music.
Figure skating as a separate sport was formed in the 60s of the 19th century. and in 1871 it was recognized at the I Congress of Skating. The first competition took place in Vienna in 1882 among male figure skaters.
In 1908 and 1920 figure skating competitions were held at the Summer Olympics. It should be noted that figure skating is the first of winter views sports included in the Olympic program. Since 1924, figure skating has been a regular feature of the Winter Olympics.
From 1986 to the present, official international competitions figure skating, such as world championship, European championship, Championship Four continents and others pass under the auspices International Union skaters (ISU, from the English International Skating Union, ISU).
There are 5 disciplines in figure skating: men's single skating, women's single skating, pair figure skating, sports dancing and group synchronized skating. Group synchronized skating is not yet included in the program of official competitions, according to this species figure skating, there is a separate world championship in synchronized skating.
History of figure skating in Russia
Figure skating in Russia has been known since the time of Peter I. The Russian Tsar brought the first samples of skates from Europe. It was Peter I who invented new way fastenings of skates - directly to the boots and thus created the "protomodel" of today's equipment for skaters.
In 1838, the first textbook for figure skaters was published in St. Winter fun and the art of skating. Its author was G. M. Pauli, a gymnastics teacher in the military educational institutions of St. Petersburg.
Russian figure skating as a sport originated in 1865. Then a public skating rink was opened in the Yusupov Garden on Sadovaya Street. This skating rink was the most comfortable in Russia and from the very first days it became a center for the training of figure skaters. On March 5, 1878, the first competition of Russian figure skaters took place on it. In 1881, the Society of Skating Fans included about 30 people. One of the most famous sports and public figures was Vecheslav Izmailovich Sreznevsky, an honorary member of this society.
Types of figure skating:
Women's single figure skating.
A figure skater in single skating must demonstrate mastery of all groups of elements - steps, spirals, rotations, jumps. The higher the quality and complexity of the elements performed, the higher the level of the athlete. Important criteria are also: the connection of the athlete's movements with music, plasticity, aesthetics and artistry.
Competitions in single skating are held in 2 stages: the first stage is a short program, the second stage is a free program.
Pair skating
The task of athletes in pair skating is to demonstrate mastery of the elements in such a way as to create the impression of unity of action.
In pair skating, along with the traditional elements (steps, spirals, jumps), there are elements that are performed only in this type of figure skating: these are lifts, spins, throws, todes, joint and parallel rotations. An important criterion in paired athletes is the synchronism of the execution of the elements.
In pair skating, as well as in singles, competitions are held in two stages - short and free programs.
Sports dancing on ice.
In sports ice dancing, from a technical point of view, the main attention is paid to the joint performance of dance steps in standard and non-standard dance positions, and long-term separation of partners is not allowed. Unlike pair figure skating, there are no jumps, throws, and other distinctive elements of pair figure skating in sports dances.
In sports dancing, an important component of success is the smoothness of movements and the attractive appearance of the couple, so much attention is paid to musical accompaniment and careful selection of costumes for each competition program. Thanks to this, sports dancing is one of the most spectacular areas in figure skating.
The modern program of official competitions includes 3 dances: compulsory, original and free.
Synchronized figure skating. 
The synchronized skating team consists of 16 to 20 skaters. The team may include women and men. According to the rules of the ISU (ISU), teams are divided into the following age groups: novice (corresponds to the first and second sports ranks) - up to 15 years; juniors (candidates for master of sports) - 12-18 years old; seniors (masters of sports) - 14 years and older.
Neither technique, nor gliding, nor the execution of individual elements in synchronized skating differ from classical figure skating. But there is a certain specificity of skating in the team, which makes its own adjustments to the performance of the elements. The goal is the performance of the team as a whole.
Synchronized skating has its own special obligatory elements, such as: circle, line, wheel, intersections, blocks. Forbidden moves: any lifts, jumps of more than 1 turn, crossings involving backward spirals, etc.
Synchronized skating competitions consist of a short program and a free program.
Rules and equipment.
All program requirements General rules, Special Rules and Technical rules) are negotiated and fixed in the ISU regulations for each season of figure skating competitions.
Basic elements of figure skating.
There are 4 main, basic elements in figure skating: steps, spirals, rotations and jumps. There are also a number of specific elements performed in one type of figure skating, such as lifts, twists, throws, death drops in pair skating.
Steps in figure skating.
Steps are combinations of pushes and basic skating elements - arcs, triplets, constrictions, brackets, hooks, counters and loops, with the help of which the skater moves around the site. Steps are used to connect elements in a program. In addition, step tracks are a mandatory element of the program.
According to the new judging system, there are 4 levels of track difficulty.
Spirals.
A spiral is a position with one skate on the ice and the free leg (including knee and boot) above hip level. The positions of the spirals differ from each other by the sliding foot (right, left), the edge (outer, inner), the direction of sliding (forward, backward) and the position of the free leg (back, forward, sideways).
In order for the spiral to be counted, you need to be in position for at least 3 seconds.
They, like the step sequences, are rated in four levels of difficulty.
Spins in figure skating.
The curvature of the runner caused in figure skating the appearance of a large number of the most diverse rotations on the blade of one or two skates.
There are standing rotations (eg "slope"), rotations in a squat ("top") and rotations in the "swallow" position (Libela).
A change of foot during spins and a change of position allows you to perform a combination of spins.
Jumping in figure skating.
Jumps are divided into two groups - edge and toe (tooth). Repulsion from the ice in edge jumps occurs from the edge of the skate, in toe jumps - with a push from the toe of the skate.
Now skaters perform 6 types of jumps - sheepskin coat, salchow, rittberger, flip, lutz and axel.
Salchow, rittberger and axel are rib jumps; sheepskin coat, flip and lutz - to socks.
Figure skating as physical education.
We are used to seeing on TV "sports highest achievements”, in which children often enter as preschoolers, and a 30-year-old athlete is considered a veteran. However, skating is a good physical education for older ages. As M. Khvostov wrote in 1926, who has mastered skating, but does not want to aimlessly “wind circles”, there is not such a big choice left: running at speed, hockey and practicing figure skating techniques. Running and hockey are not interesting for everyone - therefore, there are many people who are fond of figure skating (often on hockey skates).
There are non-qualifying competitions for former athletes and people who have mastered skating in adulthood. If there are few participants, men and women can have overall standings(the division is based on the level of skating - for example, “pre-bronze” jumps are allowed up to one turn, except for the lutz). Singles are usually divided into five or six groups, pairs - into two or three. Singles and couples skate one short program, dancers - two dances. At such competitions, there are unusual disciplines - for example, dancing alone, improvisation (participants listen to music, after which they are given half an hour to create a program) or compulsory figures.
A bit of history
The appearance of figure skating in Russia, as well as the appearance of many progressive ones in our country, is associated with the activities of Peter I, who, in addition to tobacco, brought the first models of skates to the country, and also invented a new fastening of them to boots. The output of the textbook G.M. Puili "Winter fun and the art of skating" in 1838, the opening of a mass skating rink in the Yusupov Garden in 1865, the holding of the first world figure skating championship in 1896 in St. Petersburg and individual victories of Russian and Soviet figure skaters cannot compared with the period of great popularity of figure skating in the USSR and Russia in the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century.
Starting with the inclusion of figure skating in the Olympic Games in 1908, athletes from the USA, Sweden, Austria, Germany, Great Britain, and Norway were mainly on the podium. The real flowering of figure skating in the USSR begins in the 1960s. At the 1964 Olympiad, Lyudmila Belousova and Oleg Protopopov beat the couple from the United German Team Marika Kilius and Hans-Jürgen Bäumler by just one judge vote. From this moment, absolutely fantastic statistics on the supply of gold to the USSR and Russia in figure pair skating begins. The first place was taken by our athletes in 12 Olympiads in a row (!!!). You can be wrong, but probably nowhere else has such a thing been achieved. great advantage in any sport over other countries, as in figure skating in pairs. Our Soviet athletes Lyudmila Belousova, Oleg Protopopov, Irina Rodnina, Alexander Zaitsev became real models for many future skaters.
The performance of our athletes in ice dancing has also been very successful since the inclusion of this sport in the program of the Winter Olympic Games in 1974. In total, in 11 Olympiads, our athletes took 7 gold medals, and at the same time, not a single pedestal for 40 years could do without the USSR and Russia.
Things were a little worse with single figure skating. Despite the individual successes of our athletes during the Soviet era, our athletes were able to win the first gold medals in men's and women's figure skating only in the post-Soviet period. The gold medal in 1992 was won by Viktor Petrenko, then representing the United Team of the Former Soviet Republics. After that, a real golden period for men's single skating began, which was marked by very bright performances and victories by Alexei Urmanov, Ilya Kulik, Alexei Yagudin, Evgeni Plushenko. the first gold medal in women's single skating received Adelina Sotnikova in 2014 at the Olympics in Sochi.
How can one explain such a high popularity and development of this sport in our country?
Entertainment and the advent of television
In terms of passions, figure skating is probably not much inferior to football matches (RFPL matches, especially). Of course, in most cases, the contenders for the first places are known in advance, but a ridiculous mistake can put an end to winning prizes and years of training will end in nothing. From this follows another very spectacular thing, which is quite well conveyed to the audience, this is the psychological state of the athletes, which must be sufficiently stable during the performance in order to prevent ridiculous mistakes. Everyone remembers how at the Olympics in Sochi the whole country was worried about Yulia Lipnitskaya, who at that time was only 15 years old. Commentators focused on the age of Yulia and that what a huge burden of responsibility fell on her. The whole country watched with bated breath as Yulia prepared for her program, as her coach supported her.
Elegance and synchronism of movements, together with the sports elements of figure skating, are very attractive to the audience. On the ice, the skaters seem to live their whole lives during the performance with love, tragedies, etc. Figure skating, in principle, is a rather interesting format of artistic creativity, which allows through the movements of athletes to convey the director's idea without words. It is Lyudmila Belousova and Oleg Protopopov who are called athletes who have chosen the path of artistic enrichment of programs. By given path the whole world of figure skating has gone, one of the obligatory elements of which is now a bright script of the program, and the director of the performance has become as important a participant in the preparation as the coach.
It was the widespread use of television in the USSR in the second half of the 20th century that allowed many Soviet citizens to learn about figure skating in a slightly different way. And during the period of a great shortage of entertainment programs on television, figure skating, in combination with the above-described entertainment and a large artistic component, has truly gained great popularity in our country for many years.
Policy
It is also impossible not to take into account that the influence of the political situation in the world on the popularity of figure skating was also extremely large. Suffice it to recall that the heyday of the popularity of figure skating in the USSR coincided with the Cold War period, and ordinary competitions were usually accompanied by political scandals. One of the most famous cases was the turning off of the music during the performance of Irina Rodnina and Alexander Zaitsev at the 1973 World Figure Skating Championships in Czechoslovakia, which was organized by one of the Czech employees in retaliation for the Prague Spring in 1968; running away before performance American figure skater Randy Gardner, who could not cope with the heavy burden of responsibility that lay on him in connection with the expectations of Americans to win in pairs figure skating over the "red queen" (Irina Rodnina) at the 1980 Olympics; judging scandal at the 2002 Olympics, as a result of which both the Russian and Canadian pair of figure skaters were in 1st place. Figure skating has literally become one of the places where Russia and the Western world clash. The overwhelming advantage of the first USSR, and then Russia in this sport was so undeniable that it created sincere pride in our country.
What now?
A large number of television shows, the organization of large-scale ice shows recently, the opening of new figure skating schools give reason to assume that the popularity of this sport in our country will increase. As for the victories of our athletes, the 2018 Olympics can already rightly be called one of the strangest for Russia, even without taking into account the fact that Russia was actually deprived of official participation in the competition, up to the impossibility of using state paraphernalia and the anthem . Didn't go a large number of strong athletes, which were so lacking in biathlon, cross-country skiing, speed skating. To a lesser extent, this affected figure skating, where Ksenia Stolbova was suspended ( sports couple with Fedor Klimov) and Ivan Bukin (dancing on ice with Alexandra Stepanova). However, it was the Olympics in Korea that became one of the most unfortunate in history for Russian figure skaters ... So for the second Olympics in a row we have not had a single medal in men's single skating. Again, the result in pair skating at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics was repeated, where there was not a single medal in this type of competition, although until recently it was considered impossible (just look at the statistics above). For the first time since the entry of ice dancing into the Olympic program in 1976, our team does not have a single medal.
The real salvation for our entire Olympic team, or, if we use football terminology, “a goal of prestige,” was the performance of our girls in single skating, which is currently experiencing a real flourishing largely thanks to the brilliant work of coach Eteri Tutberidze. It was the small, fragile 15-year-old Alina Zagitova who brought for us, like the first such confident victory, and the first (hopefully not the only) gold medal at this Olympiad. The first place of Alina Zagitova and the fact that silver in women's figure skating and in team competition also in Russia, leaves us great hope that this Olympiad was just some kind of misunderstanding and big wins we still have ahead.
Figure skating is considered a complex coordination sport and includes certain disciplines:
- men's and women's single figure skating;
- pair figure skating;
- dance Sport;
- synchronized figure skating.
Men's and women's single skating demonstrates the ability of athletes to master all groups of elements - steps, jumps, rotations and spirals. For evaluation, they look at the quality and complexity of the elements performed, plasticity, artistry and the connection of the skater's movements with music.
IN pair skating it is important to demonstrate the unity and synchronism of the actions of the two partners. Unlike single skating, there are also lifts, twists, throws, todes, joint and parallel spins.
IN ice dancing sports also performs a couple, a man and a woman. This discipline is based on complicated steps and spins, but supports above the shoulders, jumps and other "acrobatic" elements are prohibited here.
In ice dancing, great importance is attached to the smoothness of movements and appearance athletes, the aesthetic image of dance partners, musical accompaniment are carefully worked out.
Important for ice dancing athletes is "choreography" and artistry. This is due to the fact that, in addition to a confident possession of technique, it is required to demonstrate a holistic musical performance, which will be evaluated by the judges.
Rhythms and themes for ice dancing are determined annually by the Ice Dance Technical Committee. Athletes are expected to use prescribed elements from the following: dance lifts, spins, twizzle series, step sequences.
The fourth discipline is synchronized figure skating, which involves the participation of 16 to 20 skaters (no matter men or women). The specificity of this discipline is the presence of such mandatory elements as a circle, a line, a wheel, intersections and blocks. Interestingly, synchronized skating is not included in the Olympic program of competitions - a separate world championship is held for this type of figure skating.
By the way, it is believed that various ice shows on TV, they partially changed the perception of the concept of ice dancing, and the term "figure skating" in general. Most of the viewers, who were fascinated by spectacular shows, began to associate what was happening on the screen with figure skating as a sport. In fact, the numbers performed by the participants of the show, even with a stretch, cannot be fully called sports dancing on ice. As you know, not only professional figure skaters, but also invited “stars” (actors, singers, TV presenters, etc.) participate in such productions, and therefore the skating program is, of course, a lightweight version.
In addition, there is another distinction: amateur athletes take part in the main tournaments held under the auspices of the International Skating Union (world championships, European championships, Olympic Games). In television projects and staged shows, like " ice age”, Professional skaters participate, who receive fees for their work and should not engage in amateur sports.
What is included in the competition program for each of the disciplines?
For major international competitions, short and free dances are mandatory for all disciplines of figure skating.
short dance combined elements of the previously existing obligatory and original dances. The duration of the program is about 3 minutes. The essence of the dance is in the presentation by the athletes of a single complete composition with an established rhythm, prescribed elements and a certain type of music.
free dance- This The final stage competition lasting 4 minutes. Athletes, with the help of a coach, independently select the rhythm, theme of the program, music and surroundings.
There is also a so-called. pattern dance, it is excluded from major championships and the Olympic Games, but can be performed at competitions at a more local level. The pattern dance used to be called the compulsory dance - until the 2010-2011 season, the compulsory dance was the first stage of the competition in ice dancing.
How does the modern grading system work?
Previously, figure skating used the so-called "6.0 system" (it is sometimes called the "old system"), but in 2005 it was replaced by a new judging system. Understanding the differences and subtleties is difficult, but possible.
What was before? Within the 6-point system, 2 overall marks were given (technical and for "program presentation"), and these marks were relative, not absolute. The judges decided which elements of the declared ones were fulfilled, “prescribed” penalties for certain errors, but now it is believed that in the process of judging they essentially compared the complexity of the programs of several athletes, that is, the value of the assessment depended not only on the performance of a particular participant, but also from the level of its competitors.
Why was the new system introduced? To say goodbye to the principle of comparing programs and achieve an absolute assessment. And to make it easier to calculate the "biased" judge.
The technical elements and "program components" are now evaluated. What has changed? Let's start with the technical elements.
IN new system there are important fundamental documents - it is element cost tables. These tables initially and clearly define how many points an athlete receives for the performance of each element of his program. And this element value is constant value, it is not subject to change for at least one season.
Having the tables in front of them, the judges determine only the level of performance (from -3 to +3). Thus, the basic cost of the elements clearly determines how much they “cost” in a normal performance, and then the scheme is simple: if the judges really like the performance, they add points, but if the element is performed with an error, points can be removed.
A very important point: the maximum allowable number of different elements in the program is strictly regulated (this is done so that within the framework of the New System it would be possible to adequately compare one skater with another).
But despite this, one way or another, every skater still has own potential "base": after all, before performing at tournaments, athletes and their coaches submit a kind of “application” in advance (relative to what elements will be in his program), and judges go to official training and can observe. Therefore, strictly speaking, if an athlete "knows how" to perform a certain set of elements, then the sum of his basic marks is initially potentially higher.
But the essence remains the same: even if 2 athletes completed the same elements, the base cost will be the same, but the difference in the number of points will already depend on the quality of the elements.
At the same time, we note 2 more important moments: if initially an athlete declared, for example, a double sheepskin coat, but jumped a triple, he will still be assessed for a triple. In addition, if during the “6.0 system” an element performed with an error (for example, a jump with a landing on 2 legs) was not counted, then according to the New System, all elements are counted, they just first receive their base cost, from which fines for quality are then deducted execution. According to the developers of the system, such a procedure ensures fairness and impartiality in the assessment.
Of course, the system has its pitfalls. So, fans of figure skating have a fresh memory of the situation in 2010, when at the Olympics in Vancouver Evgeni Plushenko conceded the "gold" to the American Evan Lysacek. The crux of the situation is that the latter did not include a quadruple sheepskin coat in his program, while Plushenko performed a combination of a quadruple and triple sheepskin coat; that is, Lysacek scored points due to the quality performance of less complex elements. At that time, many spectators and experts complained with annoyance that a skater with a simple program, who did not include more complex elements in it, is theoretically able to defeat an opponent who owns a more risky "toolkit".
As for the second parameter, marks for the components of the program, they are given in order to evaluate the quality of sliding, choreography and coherence of the program, etc. (components - 5). In its essence, this is an analogue of the "presentation of the program" (or "artistry") of the old system.
But connoisseurs of this sport on specialized forums note that, in general, it has not yet been possible to make the second assessment “work”.
All evaluations of judges are noted in special protocols of program rental.
As for the scheme for determining the winner, everything happens as follows: the participants perform a short program, and then the 24 best athletes, following the results of this program, perform an arbitrary one. The result of the tournament is determined by summing the scores for both programs.
What is the history of figure skating?
Skating has been known to people since ancient times: archaeologists have found bone prototypes of skates made from animal bones, dated back to the 2nd-1st centuries BC. Such skates could give ancient people an advantage in speed, but then there was no talk of figure skating.
In Holland, in the 12th-14th centuries AD, the first iron skates began to appear, which allowed the skater to draw more or less graceful pirouettes on the ice.
In England of the 18th century, the first amateur skating clubs appeared, a list of obligatory figures for skaters and the first competition rules were developed there.
From Europe the new kind The sport has spread throughout the world. Their own schools of figure skating were created, new models of skates were developed, the technical side of the performance of skating elements was improved.
As a sport, figure skating was officially recognized at the First Skating Congress in 1871. The following year, Vienna hosted the first official men's figure skating competition in Europe.
In Russia, figure skating appeared thanks to Peter I, who brought samples of skates after traveling around Europe. In 1865, a public skating rink was opened in the Yusupov Garden on Sadovaya Street, where they began to train figure skaters. The first competition of Russian figure skaters took place there in March 1878. Since then, Russian athletes have created their own school of figure skating, which is recognized as one of the strongest in the world.
Since 1924, figure skating has been included in the official program of the Winter Olympic Games. Since 1986, under the auspices of the International Skating Union (ISU), such international competitions as the World and European Championships, the Four Continents Championships and other competitions have been held.
Ice dancing as such first appeared in England in the late 1940s. Then the skaters tried to improvise on skates to the music.
In the official program of the European and World Championships, sports dances were included in 1952, and for ten years at major competitions in this discipline, mostly English figure skaters won. Only in 1962 they were replaced on the pedestal by representatives of Czechoslovakia - Eva Romanova And Pavel Roman.
In 1976, sports dancing became part of the program of the XII Winter Olympic Games. Soviet skaters took gold Alexander Gorshkov And Ludmila Pakhomova.
The list of mandatory elements for sports dances appeared only in 1999. Then the ice dancing competitions were triathlon and included compulsory, original and free dances. For each dance, the judges awarded marks separately, and the places in the final were determined by the sum of the points at the end. standings. However, starting from the 2010-2011 season, major ice dancing tournaments must consist of two compulsory stages: the short dance and the free dance.
