Figure skating originated in England in the 18th century, and then developed rapidly in Germany, the United States, Canada and other European and American countries.



In 1772, a treatise on skating, written by British artillery Lieutenant Robert Jones, was published in London. It is the first book on figure skating in the world. The figure skating competition held at that time was so-called "British style". It was old-fashioned and formal, which was far from modern figure skating.



In 1863, known as the "father of modern flower skating", American Jackson Haines integrated skating with dance art and performed in Europe, which enriched the content and form of figure skating. In 1868, Daniel mey and George mey of the United States performed double skating for the first time.



In 1872, Austria held the first figure skating competition. In 1896, the first World Men's single figure skating championship was held in Petersburg, Russia.



In 1906, the first World Women's single figure skating championship was held in Davos, Switzerland;



In 1924, it was listed as the first Winter Olympic Games, including men's and women's single skating (listed in 1924), double skating (listed in 1924) and ice dancing (listed in 1976).



In 1952, the first World Ice Dance Championship was held in Paris, France. The ice rink of figure skating is 56-61 meters long, 26-30 meters wide, and the thickness of ice is no less than 3-5 cm.



The development of figure skating in China



Skating has a long history in China, and the history of Song Dynasty has already recorded about "ice skating". After the Yuan Dynasty, Bingxi became more popular. There are records of "ice bed, ice rub" in the Ming Dynasty's "Jisheng at the age of emperor Jing", which all refer to skating on frozen rivers and lakes. During the reign of Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty, a painting of Bingxi Fu by painter Shen Yuan shows such postures as big scorpion, Golden Rooster independence and Nezha exploring the sea. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, in the Beijing Beihai figure skating performance specially for Cixi, there were double action such as double flying swallow and butterfly loving flower, and single action such as morning stirrup and boy worshiping Buddha. At that time, folk ice performances included monkey holding peach, lying fish, kite flying, phoenix spreading wings, body shaking and so on.