Figure and Fancy Skating, or the term “Fancy Skating” is an Athletic Skating Art, performed with or without music and is the only art or sport that imprints art on the ice, combined with flights of fancy and spinning art.
Fancy Skating embodies an unlimited repertoire comprised of the entire skating alphabet built from the prestigious patterns and knowledge of: Fundamental, Special, Creative, Free, Flying and Spinning Figure Artworks. Fancy Skating also includes Dancing on Ice, Continuous, and Team Fancy Skating because the patterns in skating all originate from the roots of Figure Artworks.
Today, Fancy Skating incorporates a prestigious and vast skating repertoire that combines 4 major art genres: fine, performing, decorative and recording arts. The World Figure & Fancy Skating Championships on black ice exists to determine the World’s Greatest Fancy Skating Artists.
Fancy Skating embodies a rich tradition spanning generations and continents. Its development began in the 18th century when people in England first began skating for pleasure; and continued into the 19th and 20th century when it was practiced and promoted in Great Britain, Austria, Germany, France, North America and Russia.
The term Fancy Skating is etched into a golden history and is on the cover of a literary masterpiece titled, Figure and Fancy Skating, by George A. Meagher. It was published with an epic green and gold binding in London in 1895. The document was published in the beautiful era (la belle époque), and coincided with an elegant era in the art of Figure and Fancy Skating. Meagher chronicled the intricate cutting edge techniques that form the incredible repertoire of Figure and Fancy Skating.
Tremendous knowledge, beauty, and world competitions occurred before any international skating bodies existed. George A. Meagher, was a World Champion before the publication of his monumental work. All figure-skating* was organically built from the knowledge and patterns derived from the Figure Artworks and Fancy Skating. A monumental loss occurred when skating politicians in charge of a newly formed international skating organization back in 1892 diminished the great on-ice artworks by limiting the vast body of work already developed to only plain circles with turns. This limitation began in 1892 and suited the agenda of diminishing the art and creativity in skating by 1909 when only allowing the most simplistic of the Figure Artworks in competition ——the circles.
Fancy Skating is actually unlimited and was revived beginning in 2015 with the founding of the World Figure Sport Society (WFS), a new global brand and organization formed to expand the beautiful art and sport of Figure & Fancy Skating in the 21st century.
Over the past decade, a monumental expansion of Figure and Fancy Skating Artwork has wow spectators at ten consecutive World Figure & Fancy Skating Championships on black ice. This legacy allows for the ever growing global expansion of new generations of Fancy Skaters to flourish both on and off the ice as renowned artists who combine 4 major art genres. The 11th year of the World Figure & Fancy Skating Championships on black ice is October 8-12, 2025 in Lake Placid, NY.
World Figure Sport expands the world heritage of Figure Artworks and Fancy Skating because our global patrimony of culture, art, sport and goodwill are vitally important in modernity.
*Footnote: The term Figure Skating was written as Figure-Skating to describe the actual type of skating that would be produced. This term typed with a hyphen is known from the knowledge published in the Victorian Era and is solidified in a first edition masterpiece housed in World Figure Sport’s Archives by Montagu S. Monnier-Williams titled Figure Skating on the cover and inside Figure-Skating (The Isthmian Library edited by B. Fletcher Robinson No. 7, London, A. D. Innes & Company, 1898).
Epic Videos of Fancy Skating
Debi Thomas, 2023 World Figure & Fancy Skating Championships’ Silver Medalist
Photo to come
John Curry’s After All – Another wonder example of Fancy Skating