International figure skating
Originally based in North America and Europe, the sport has experienced a major expansion in the countries of East Asia.Stephanie Zhang (ladies' bronze, 2000) and Ekaterina Alexandrovskaya / Harley Windsor (pairs gold in 2016) have won ISU Junior Grand Prix medals for Australia.Ekaterina Ryabova and Vladimir Litvintsev — both skaters born and based in Russia — have finished in the top ten at the European Championships for Azerbaijan.Frances Dafoe / Norris Bowden won Canada's first World pair skating title, in 1954, and repeated the following year.In 1957, Geraldine Fenton / William McLachlan became the first Canadian ice dancers to finish on the World podium, taking the silver medal.Montreal (1932), Vancouver (1960, 2001), Calgary (1972, 2006), Ottawa (1978, 1984), Halifax, Nova Scotia (1990), Edmonton (1996), and London, Ontario (2013) have hosted the World Championships.Eva Romanová / Pavel Roman were the first Czech ice dancers to stand on a World podium, winning four consecutive gold medals (1962–65).In March 1995, pair skaters Radka Kovaříková / René Novotný won gold at the World Championships in Birmingham, England.In February 2009, Michal Březina won silver in men's singles at the 2009 World Junior Championships in Sofia, Bulgaria.In March 2016, Anna Dušková / Martin Bidař became the Czech Republic's first World Junior champions in figure skating, taking gold in the pairs event in Debrecen, Hungary.Two Czech skaters have won Grand Prix events – Verner, at the 2010 Cup of Russia, and Březina, at the 2011 Skate America.Although it continued to be recognized as a sovereign state by most western governments, Estonian skaters could no longer represent their native country, until the 1990s.Marina Anissina / Gwendal Peizerat and Gabriella Papadakis / Guillaume Cizeron won Olympic gold medals in ice dancing for France, in 2002 and 2022, respectively.In 1908, representing the German Empire, Anna Hübler / Heinrich Burger became the first-ever World champions in pair skating.East German ladies would grow more successful – Gabriele Seyfert, Christine Errath, Anett Pötzsch, and Katarina Witt won a total of nine World titles.Hungarian skaters would win seven consecutive World ladies' titles – Kronberger in 1908–11, Opika von Méray Horváth in 1912–1914.In the first half of the 20th century, Hungary had several World bronze medalist in men's singles – Andor Szende (1910, 1912–13), Dénes Pataky (1935), and Elemér Terták (1937).[6] The secretary of the Ice Skating Association of India stated that lack of government assistance and a scarcity of international standard rinks continued to hinder the development of its athletes.The number of young skaters training regularly in Israel expanded from twenty to over 350 after the 2013 opening of a rink in Holon but growth remained limited due to a "lack of funding and insufficient facilities".In March 2001, ice dancers Barbara Fusar-Poli / Maurizio Margaglio became the first Italians to win a World title in any figure skating discipline.Although it continued to be recognized as a sovereign state by most western governments, Latvian skaters could no longer represent their native country, until the 1990s.Although it continued to be recognized as a sovereign state by most western governments, Lithuanian skaters could not represent their native country prior to the 1990s.Skating was used as a means of transportation because the waterways which connected Dutch towns sometimes froze for months on end, hampering the economy.Sonja Henie was the first Norwegian woman to become a World figure skating champion and the most successful ladies' singles skater in history.Ludmila Belousova / Oleg Protopopov began the forty-year Soviet/Russian gold medal streak in pair skating, the longest in Olympic sports history, from 1964 to 2006.In 1969, Lyudmila Pakhomova / Aleksandr Gorshkov became the first Russian ice dancers to stand on a World podium, winning the silver medal.In the second half of the 1991–92 season, Ukrainian skaters represented the Commonwealth of Independent States (at the 1992 Europeans and 1992 Worlds), and the Unified Team (at the 1992 Winter Olympics).[14] In 2010, Tatiana Volosozhar and Stanislav Morozov stated that conditions for skaters in Ukraine were poor, with only one good rink remaining.In August 2000, Sport England decided that the National Ice Skating Association would no longer receive £400,000 annually from lottery funds, citing poor performance.In 1952, Carol Ann Peters / Daniel Ryan won bronze at the first-ever World ice dancing competition.