Fast Pace, Challenging and Focus. These are the words used in describing Speed Skating. Learn why Speed Skating has joined the ranks of exciting sports on DECA SPORTS !
Speed Skating
Speed skating is a competitive form of skating in which the competitors race each other in traveling a certain distance on skates. Types of speed skating are long track speed skating, short track speed skating, inline speed skating, marathon speed skating and quad speed skating. Speed Skating is very popular in the Netherlands, Austria, Canada, Finland, Germany, Japan, Italy, South Korea, Sweden, the Czech Republic and the United States.
History
Most skating sports have origins beyond the 20th century, with speed skating the first to be organized with international competition. Organized races on ice skates developed in the 19th century. Norwegian clubs hosted competitions from 1863, with races in Oslo. At the 1914 Olympic Congress, the delegates agreed to include speed
skating in the 1916 Olympics. However, World War I put an end to the
plans of Olympic competition. It wasn't until 1924 that ice speed
skating reached the Olympic program.
Women and Speed Skating
In the 1930s, women began to be accepted in ISU speed skating competitions. Although women's races had been held in North America for some time, and competed at the 1932 Winter Olympics in a demonstration event, the ISU did not organise official competitions until 1936. However, Zofia Nehringowa set the first official world record in 1929. Women's speed skating was not very high profile; in Skøytesportens stjerner (Stars of the skating sport), a Norwegian work from 1971, no female skaters are mentioned on the book's nearly 200 pages, though they had by then competed for nearly 30 years. The women's long track speed skating was since dominated by East Germany and later reunified Germany, who have won 15 of 35 Olympic gold medals in women's long track since 1984.
How To Play
All races are held in pairs, for which two lanes on the track are used. Skaters wear bands around their upper arm to identify which lane they started in. The colors are white for inner lane and red for outer lane. At the back straight, the skaters switch lanes, which causes them both to cover the same distance per lap. When both skaters emerge from the corner at the exact same time, the person currently in the inner lane will have to let the outer lane pass in front of him. This usually does not cause any problems, as the person in the outer lane will generally move much faster then the person in the inner lane.
DECA SPORTS 2 is skating its way on to Wii™ this September 29th!
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