Single skating

Jeffrey Buttle, a men's single skater, performs an inside edge spread eagle.

Mirai Nagasu, a ladies single skater, performs a layback spin.

Single skating is a discipline of figure skating, wherein a single person skates alone. Men's singles and ladies' singles are both Olympic disciplines and are both governed by the International Skating Union.^[1] The other Olympic figure skating events are pair skating and ice dancing. Single skaters perform jumps, spins, footwork, spirals, and other moves in the field as part of their competition programs.

Competitions

Main article: Figure skating competition

Single skating competitions consist of a short program and free skating (often called the "long program"), usually performed within a day or two of each other. At some large competitions, including the World Figure Skating Championships and European Figure Skating Championships, there is a cut after the short program and a skater must perform well enough in the short program to advance to the free skating portion of the competition. Skaters are separated into warm-up groups, and generally there is a draw to decide the skating order. For the long program, the warm-up groups are organized according to a skater's placement after the short program, making skating in the "final group" (or the top six skaters after the short program) a goal of many competitors.

Short program

Short programs at the senior and junior levels are two minutes and fifty seconds long. Skaters are penalized if they skate over that time limit.

Skaters must perform certain required elements as part of the program. These elements have varied over the years. The short program is the more exacting of the programs because all the required elements must be completed.

Free skating

International Skating Union (ISU) regulations state:

Free skating consists of a well balanced program of free skating elements, such as jumps, spins, steps and other linking movements executed with a minimum of two footed skating in harmony with music of the competitor's choice, except that music with lyrics is not permitted.

The free skating programs are 4¹⁄₂ minutes for men, 4 minutes for ladies. Skaters are allowed a time margin of +/- 10 seconds, and are penalized for going outside that range.

Judging

Figure skaters competing in an ISU-sanctioned event are judged under the ISU Judging System.

References

• ISU Judging System: Single and Pair Skating
• "ISU Judging System Technical Panel Handbook: Single Skating 2011/2012". International Skating Union. 16 July 2011. http://www.sportcentric.com/vsite/vfile/page/fileurl/0,11040,4844-197593-214816-125742-0-file,00.pdf. 
• "Special Regulations & Technical Rules: Single & Pair Skating and Ice Dance 2010". International Skating Union. June 2010. http://www.isu.org/vsite/vfile/page/fileurl/0,11040,4844-202745-219968-166758-0-file,00.pdf. 
• "ISU Special Regulations, Single & Pair Skating, 2004". International Skating Union. http://www.isu.org/vsite/vfile/page/fileurl/0,11040,4844-160823-178038-80283-0-file,00.pdf. 

Notes

1. ^ Note: Women are referred to as ladies in International Skating Union regulations.

External links

• Washington Post: All You Need to Know About Figure Skating