Fast Skating Facts!
Did you know???
- The first woman to land a triple axel was Midori Ito of Japan. The triple axel is actually 3 and a half rotations and takes off from the front outside edge.
- In senior ice dance, there are over 20 compulsary dances that must be mastered
- On EBay.com, Oksana Baiul's suit from "The Nutcracker" went for a minimum bid of $1500.00
- In 1988 at the Budapest World Championships, Canadian Kurt Browning landed the first quadruple jump in history -- a toe loop. He finished only 6th at the event!
- In their career, Great Britain ice dancers, Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean recieved a total of 136 perfect marks!
- Tara Lipinski is the first woman to land a triple loop - triple loop combination in competition. She's also the youngest World and Olympic champ ever.
- At the 2000 Canadian National Championships, Jamie Sale and David Pelletier recieved their first 6.0's (five of them, all in presentation) A month later they recieved another 6.0 at the Four Continents in Osaka, Japan. Jamie and David have skated together for only 2 years!
- At the 1997 Canadian Nationals, Shae-Lynn Bourne and Victor Kraatz got 6 perfect scores: 2 in technical merit and 4 in presentation. They went on to finish 4th at the Nagano Olympics
- When Jennifer Robinson finished 8th at the 2000 World championships (6th in the free skate!!!) she improved her 1999 placement by 10 places!
- During an Olympic year, Tom Collins' "Champions on Ice" does between 80-90 shows
- 3-time World champion Aleksei Yagudin has yet to win his own National title
- After only 6 months of skating together, Jamie Sale and David Pelletier competed at their first competition (Skate Canada International) They won a bronze medal!
- Megan Wing and Aaron Lowe (Canada's second-ranked dance team) have been skating together for 12 years
- Elvis Stojko was the first man to land a quad-triple in competition. Since the feat was accomplished in 1997, the move has become a big part of men's figure skating
- Kurt Browning never won an Olympic medal despite winning the Worlds several times
- Ilia Kulik won the Olympics at the age of 20, and on his first try! He's the youngest men's Olympic medalist ever
- At the 1999 Canadian Open Championships, a history-making event occured: Brian Orser, Kurt Browning, and Elvis Stojko (3 of Canada's past and present dominant men's skaters) all competed against each other for the first time ever!
- After skating to "I Saw Her Standing There" for several months, Canadian Ice Dance Champions Shae-Lynn Bourne and Victor Kraatz changed their original dance to "Grease Lightning." They first performed the new dance in the short program at the 1998 Olympics!
- Aleksei Yagudin lost every head-to-head competition with Evgeny Plushenko in the 1999-2000 skating season up until the Worlds. Aleksei changed his long program right before the worlds. Skating to "Tosca," Aleksei became a 3-time World champion while Evgeny finished 4th
- After a injury-plagued 1998-1999 season and a 4th place at the 1999 Worlds, Elvis Stojko came back to win the silver medal at the 2000 World championships. He has now committed to the 2002 Olympics; he'll be 30 when he competes there.
If there are any problems with these facts, please contact me at [email protected]