It's time to talk about figure skating and travel.
Remember a waltz performance at the New Year's Concert at Vienna's Musikverein on January 1 this year? Ballet dancers dance in the castle accompanied by beautiful round dances. When it comes to Vienna, most people think of music and waltz, a city that brings together the afterglow of the Habsburg dynasty, which has not only been listed as the most livable city in the world many times, but also the origin of modern figure skating.
Compared to the intense short track speed skating, the figure skating competition is pleasing to the eye. Athletes freely draw various patterns on the ice surface, perform difficult actions such as jumping and spinning, and the referees comprehensively score according to the quality and artistic performance of the movements.
Figure skating originated in the Netherlands in the 17th century, Amsterdam is known as the "Venice of the North", the Netherlands is located in northwest Europe, the winter is cold, crisscrossing the river channel has become a natural ice rink. The earliest recognized work on skating is the English Welsh man Robert Jones (1740-1788) on Skating in 1772. With the industrial revolution and the development of the iron smelting industry, the United Kingdom produced iron ice knives, abandoning the previous way of fixing ice knives with straps, and using screws through the heels, which greatly increased stability, and skating sports developed in Northern Europe and Canada and the United States.
Vienna in 1868 was also one of the capitals of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (at that time the empire was the dual capitals of Vienna and Budapest), the Habsburg Dynasty was in full swing, and Vienna was also the cultural center of Europe. Located north of the Alps, Vienna has a temperate continental climate, and in cold winters, American ballet performance artist Jackson Haines danced one of the most fashionable waltzs on the ice on the ice rink at the Vienna Ice Rink, accompanied by a melodious round dance, which stunned the skaters around him, and then danced the then fashionable mazurka (a folk dance in Poland) and kadri (a dance popular in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries). Under Jackson's impetus, the Figure Skating Club was established in Vienna, and Jackson designed the movements of figure skating, swivel, and circling according to ballet, introducing a new style that combined freestyle and expressive techniques. Therefore, Austria combines ballet, music and skating perfectly, which is a modern figure skating sport with musical accompaniment. In 1872, Austria held the world's first figure skating competition.
In 1882, two-person figure skating appeared on the ice rink in Vienna for the first time; in 1892, the International Skating Union was founded in Davos, Switzerland. Yes, that's where the Davos Economic Forum is held once a year. Davos is located in the canton of Graubünden in eastern Switzerland, the highest town in the Alpine system, not far from St. Moritz, which I mentioned a few days ago, which has hosted two Winter Olympics, at an altitude of 1529 meters, although it has a population of only 13,000, it receives millions of tourists every year. I went to Davos once a few years ago in June and had to put on a fleece coat when I got out of the car.
Davos
Pull away, or back to figure skating. The first World Men's Singles Figure Skating Championships were held in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1896 and the first World Women's Singles Figure Skating Championships in Davos in 1906. Interestingly, figure skating was first listed as an Olympic sport at the Fourth Summer Olympics in London, England in 1908; in 1924, the first Winter Olympics in Chamonix, France, included figure skating as an official event.
Vienna has always had a tradition of skating in winter, and since 1996, the "Ice Dream" ice rink has been built every winter in the town hall square from mid-January to early March.
The aforementioned Budapest has turned the lake in the city park into a natural outdoor skating area, next to Hősök tere in the city and in front of the Szechenyi Thermal Springs.
After more than 100 years of development, the official events of the 2022 Winter Olympics in figure skating have a total of 5 sub-events, namely: men's singles free skating, women's singles free skating, pairs free skating, team competition and ice dance free skating.
Oh, and there's a little bit of not too cold knowledge: although modern figure skating competitions are indoors, the temperature requirements are also very high, and the ice surface needs to be kept cold and hard. If the ice rink needs to be refilled, warm water is generally used to make the surface of the ice slightly melted, and then slowly cooled down to ensure the integrity and smoothness of the ice. If ice water is used, it will affect the brittleness of the ice.
For the vast majority of the audience, it's "layman watching the hilarity," and I'm no exception, so I won't introduce too much expertise in clothing, skates, and ice knives. We know that figure skating is good, and it is enough to appreciate the fitness and beauty brought by competitive sports. If you have the opportunity to travel abroad in the winter, you can experience the local natural ice rink.
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【Author:Desert Rose】
Global travel expert, freelance writer, guest host. He has traveled to nearly 50 countries and more than 200 cities on five continents.