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

Contents

Competitions

Short program

Free skating

Judging

References

Notes

External links

Competitions

Main articles: 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.

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. Which elements these are 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 4 1/2 minutes long 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 Special Regulations, Single & Pair Skating, 2004

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