Speed Skating - Elfstedentocht, Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates, Fen Skating, Long Track Speed Skating, International Skating Union (Paperback)

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 26. Chapters: Elfstedentocht, Hans Brinker, or The Silver Skates, Fen skating, Long track speed skating, International Skating Union, Adelskalender, Speed skating rink, Duke Trophy, Double push, Goodwood Roller Marathon, Oscar Mathisen Award, Crashed Ice, Ard Schenk Award, Aart Koopmans, Samalog, List of roller skaters, Speedskating World, Patinodrome, Stardust Speed Club, Ice sledge speed racing. Excerpt: Fen skating is a traditional form of ice skating in the Fenland of England. The Fens of East Anglia, with their easily flooded meadows, form an ideal skating terrain. Skates were introduced into Britain from Holland or France in the seventeenth century. It is not known when the first skating matches were held, but by the early nineteenth century they had become a feature of cold winters in the Fens. The golden age of fen skating was the second half of the nineteenth century, when thousands of people turned out to watch such legendary skaters as Larman Register, Turkey Smart, Gutta Percha See, and brothers Fish and James Smart. The National Skating Association was set up in Cambridge in 1879 and took the top few fen skaters to Holland, where they had a brief moment of international glory with James Smart becoming Britain's only ever world champion speed skater. The twentieth century saw a decline in the popularity of fen skating. Metal-bladed skates were introduced into Britain, probably from Holland or France, in the seventeenth century; before this people had attached sharpened animal bones to their feet to travel on ice. Diarists Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn both recorded seeing skating on the canal in St. James's Park in London during the winter of 1662. Pepys wrote ..".over to the Parke (where I first in my life, it being great frost, did see people sliding with their skeats which is a very pretty art)...." As a recreation, ...