Introduction
Speed skating, ice hockey and figure skating,
while quite different activities, all make up the
sport of skating. The different types of skating
vary from each other and also within discipline.
Speed skating is rhythmical, continuous and fast,
and includes long and short track, pack style,
in-line, and marathon skating. Ice hockey has
numerous starts, stops and direction changes
and thus is non-rhythmical, and is played by for-
wards, defensemen and goalies. Finally, figure
skating is more rhythmical than hockey skating,
and is also slower and graceful, with the various
jumps being of particular importance in competi-
tion in singles, pairs and ice dancing. While the
different activities vary in nature, the basic
skating motion involves contraction of the hip
and knee extensors during the stroke. The three
types of skating will be discussed independently
in this chapter.
Speed skating
Skating has been performed in cold weather
locations since the 1200s as a means of travel
wherever there was sufficient ice. Initially,
skating was performed with wooden runners
attached to shoes, with iron runners first used in
the late 1500s.
An Olympic sport for men since 1924, and for
women since 1960, long-track speed skating is
performed on a 400-m oval ice rink. Five events
are performed by both men (500–10 000 m) and
women (500–5000 m) lasting approximately
0.59–13.50 and 0.63–7.05 min, respectively (Table
50.1). In long-track events, two skaters race at
one time, thus a time trial is performed, with the
fastest skater of all pairs the event winner. World
championships are contested annually in both
sprint (500 and 1000 m) and all-around (500,
1500, 3000/5000 and 5000/10 000 m) events, with
two events usually held per day.
Short-track skating is generally performed on
a hockey rink converted to an 111-m oval. Short-
track skating was a demonstration sport in the
1988 Olympic Games and has been a medal sport
ever since. Both men and women perform the
500-and 1000-m events, as well as a 3000-m relay
for women and a 5000-m relay for men at the
Olympics. At world championship events, men
and women also perform the 1500- and 3000-m
events. With short-track skating, multiple skaters
(at least four) are on the ice during each race,
with multiple heats per event and many events
per day.
Finally, marathon skating generally entails
more than 1 h of skating (on a course of at least 40
km), and includes such races as the 11 cities
speed skating race/tour (De Elfstedentocht).
This 200-km event is held whenever the channels
of the northern Netherlands are frozen (the event
in 1997 was the 15th) with a limit of 20 000 partic-
ipants. Skating times for the event range from
6.75 to 18 h.
Thus, speed-skating events last from 0.6 min to
18 h. As very little has been written concerning
the non-Olympic speed-skating events and the