Frozen Footnotes From Figure Skating History

Figure skating has always been a sport full of surprises - glittering triumphs, forgotten milestones, and moments so unusual they defy easy categorization. Some stories are well-known; others have slipped quietly through the cracks of time. But all of them, in their own way, reveal the charm, chaos, and character that make skating's history so compelling.

Over the years, I've collected a handful of tales that didn't quite fit anywhere else - too short for a full post, but too interesting to leave untold. I hope you will find these interesting!

ŚLIZGAWKA W ŁAZIENKACH: THE LOST FILM

You’ve probably never heard of Ślizgawka w Łazienkach - yet it may have been the one of the very first films ever made in Poland, and quite possibly one of the first moving pictures of figure skating. Filmed between 1894 and 1896 by inventor and cinematography pioneer Kazimierz Prószyński, it captured skaters gliding over the ice at the Warszawskie Towarzystwo Łyżwiarskie (Warsaw Skating Association), founded just a year earlier. Using his handmade “pleograph,” an early motion picture camera of his own design, Prószyński filmed scenes of winter life that enchanted Warsaw audiences when screened in 1902 alongside another short skating film, Ślizgawka w Dolinie Szwajcarskiej (“Skating in Swiss Valley”). These silent glimpses of skaters at play were early marvels of motion - long before the Lumière brothers’ films became household names.

Then, just as suddenly as they appeared, they vanished. For decades, the films were thought lost - perhaps destroyed by Prószyński himself to protect his inventions, or obliterated during World War II when the filmmaker perished in a Nazi concentration camp. Today, only four still images survive, ghostly echoes of what was once a landmark in both cinema and skating history. Their disappearance is a haunting reminder of how fragile the record of our past can be - and how easily even the brightest moments on ice can fade if they aren’t preserved.

THE CASE OF THE MISSING PROGRAMS

Photo courtesy "Skate" magazine

In December 1985, the World Junior Championships returned to Sarajevo's Zetra Ice Rink - the same arena where the world's top figure skaters had dazzled thousands just a year earlier during the 1984 Winter Olympics. But when skaters and officials arrived, something strange was afoot. They received beautifully printed event programs, yet not a single one was available for spectators - despite the fact that ten thousand copies had supposedly been printed.

Souvenir pins, a staple at every international event, had also been produced in large numbers - but mysteriously, only a handful ever made it to the merchandise table. Whether it was a bureaucratic mix-up or a logistical disaster, the audience was left empty-handed.

LATVIAN SKATING SPIES IN THE COLD WAR?

"The trouble," wrote Ukrainian poet Pavlo Tychyna in 1962, "is that there are some among the young poets who do not understand what it means to be an innovator... they are just twisting around like skaters pirouetting on ice." In Communist countries, that metaphor hit close to home. From the Soviet Union to China, figure skaters were often viewed with a certain air of suspicion - glamorous symbols of Western culture who moved too freely and beautifully for comfort. Katarina Witt was shadowed by the Stasi. The Protopopovs were monitored by the KGB. And, as it turns out, the spy games on ice ran even deeper than anyone imagined.

Declassified intelligence files reveal how skating was occasionally entangled in Cold War intrigue. A 1954 Nepalese intelligence report described Soviet diplomats slipping into Japan under the cover of accompanying a skating team - only for the two nations to resume diplomatic relations months later. 

Another file from 1955 told of Albert Feierabend, a Latvian skater turned Soviet agent caught entering the U.S. with a false passport and $28,000 hidden in his belt.

 

The letters of a Latvian coach named Lidija Gailis were monitored for clues about skating "contests" in Riga, and it was suspected at the time that Gailis and her husband Imants were actually Albert Feierabend and his wife Emma. The fact that a skating coach at the the Sports Society 'Daugava' was being monitored by the CIA in the 1950s was certainly intriguing.

Whether coincidence or cover, these stories remind us that behind the elegance of a perfect spiral sometimes lurked the chill of espionage - and history may still have a few more frozen secrets left to uncover.

BEGIN THE BEGUINE

The Starlight Waltz, Tango Romantica, Silver Samba, Paso Doble - names that immediately spark recognition among ice dance fans. These compulsory dances were performed thousands of times by the world's best ice dancers over the years. Yet not every dance caught on in the same way.

Take the Beguine, a flirtatious foxtrot/rhumba from the Caribbean, made famous in the U.S. by Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell dancing to Cole Porter's "Begin the Beguine" in 1940. It wasn't until 1957 that British ice dancer Robert Dench brought it to the rink, crafting a foxtrot-style pattern with intricate lobes, progressives, and chassés. 

Despite its clever design and international flair, the Beguine never caught on. Today, the Beguine remains a fascinating footnote in ice dance history - a short-lived reminder that for every compulsory dance that caught on, there were dozens of others that didn't.

TAIWAN MEETS SWITZERLAND

Founded in 1973, the Chinese Taipei Amateur Skating Association took a decade to join the ISU, officially becoming a member in 1983. By 1990, the Association had grown to twelve skating clubs with 250 members. In 1986, at the World Championships in Geneva, Pauline Lee made history as the first skater from Taiwan to compete at a senior ISU event. She didn’t advance to the free skate, but she also didn’t finish last either, marking an important first step on the international stage.

But the story of Taiwan’s debut at the World Championships that year goes far beyond Lee’s historic appearance. In the "Skate" magazine yearbook of 1986, British sportswriter Sandra Stevenson recalled, "The boy from Taiwan apparently got sick on his flight from the United States where he had been training. Another boy who was not the named reserve, and therefore could not have competed, was allowed into a practice session under the misunderstanding that he was the original skater. This boy was so overwhelmed with the standards of the Soviets, with whom he had to share practice, that he hardly skated. When he did venture out, he got muscle cramps from skating on such a large rink and was withdrawn due to injury. The rink in Taipei is very small and has columns in the middle. That is nothing to the problems the skaters from Hong Kong have to deal with. A Canadian coach who went to Hong Kong to help their skaters found their biggest problem was getting the chicken coups off the rink. It seems the local merchants find the ice their most convenient source of refrigeration. After their extremely poor display last year, the skaters from Hong Kong did not turn up this time. The Taiwanese skaters are referred to as coming from the Republic of Taipei so as not to antagonise the competitors from Mainland China... A special flag was flown instead of the Taiwanese insignia and in the extremely remote chance that a Taiwanese competitor wins, a special anthem has been composed."

Skate Guard is a blog dedicated to preserving the rich, colourful and fascinating history of figure skating. Over ten years, the blog has featured over a thousand free articles covering all aspects of the sport's history, as well as four compelling in-depth features. To read the latest articles, follow the blog on Facebook, Bluesky, Pinterest and YouTube. If you enjoy Skate Guard, please show your support for this archive by ordering one of eight fascinating books highlighting the history of figure skating: https://skateguard1.blogspot.com/p/buy-book.html.