Figure Skating at the Olympic Games

The number of entries for the figure skating events at the Olympic Games is limited by a quota set by the International Olympic Committee. There are 30 participants in each singles events (ladies and men), 2400 couples in ice dance and 2000 in pairs.

German skates Anna Hyubler and Henry Burger won the title of the first Olympic Champions in pair skating.

The first and the oly Olympic champion from Russia Empire became Nikolai Aleksandrovitch Panin-Kolomenkin in 1908 at Summer OG in London.

Lyudmila Belousova and Oleg Protopopov became the first Olympic Champions in figure skating from USSR. They demonstrated new variants of death spiral. Rodnina and Ulanov showed unusual combinations of jumps. Triple jumps and throwns became standard technique. In 1988 Kurt Browning made the first quadruple jump—toeloop.

The greatest successes in the past have:

Women's single skating:

Sonja Henie –Norway. Three-time Olympic champion(1928, 1932, 1936), three-time world Champion, six-time of Europe. She was the first, who skate in a short skirt and she was the first, who applied choreography in a program.

Pair Skating:

Irina Rodnina and Alexander Zaitsev—USSR.

Men's single skating:

Gillis Grafstrem— Sweden. Three-time Olympic Champion(1920, 1924,1928), Olympic silver medalist(1932), three-time World Champion.

Two-time Olympic champions(1976, 1980), seven-time World Champions, six-time champions of Europe.

Ice Dancing:

Ludmila Pakhomova and Alexander Gorshkov—USSR. First Olympic Champions in ice dancing(1976).Six-time World and European Champions.

For the last years, the greatest success achieved:

In women's single skating:

Irina Slutskaya—Russia. Bronze and silver Olympic medalist(2002, 2006),(it was not a fair judgment), seven-time champion of Europe, two-time world Champion.

Men single skating:

Evgeni Plushenko—Russia. Olympic Champion(2006), two-time Olympic silver medalist, three-time World Champion, seven-time Champion of Europe.

Pairs:

Tatiana Totmianina and Maxim Marinin—Russia. Olympic Champions(2006), five-time champions of Europe, two-time World Champions.

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Ice Dancing:

Tatiana Navka and Roman Kostomarov—Russia. Olympic Champions(2006), two-time World Champions, tree-time Champions of Europe