About empathy towards our roots

Since long ago, figure skating always had this tension between being considered an art form and on the other side being not quite recognized in sports. Although, even back in a day, the artistic side has always been the beautiful core of this special movement.
To finance the immense costs of skating, ice maintenance and coach fees, there needed to be an income.
In the pure field of arts, this seemed to be impossible.

The activity needed proper funds, which eventually came through sports clubs, foundations, the Olympic committee. When skating became too artistic, too expressive, the risk was taken to get on the edge, to even be rejected from the Olympic Games.

The International Skating Union had to react once more in 2002 and tightened the rules towards sportive comparability. The beauty of performances we can still see today, is found where athletes and their teams manage to combine the immense athletic requests with the art skating always used to be.

We shall not forget, that the field of movement which we all have experienced for many years of our life’s, has always been, might always be in the interspace between real sports and performance arts. We all struggle the same challenge: to be recognized,
on the one side or the other.

Quote headline by Alexandre Hamel, Le Patin Libre,
Interview in The Guardian 2015 (Chris Wiegand)