Figure Skating Pins Profile: 1964 World Championships Just shy of a month after the Olympic Winter Games, the 1964 World Figure Skating Championships opened in Dortmund, West Germany, at the Westfalenhallen. Dortmund had previously hosted one major international figure skating event—the 1953 European Championships—so this was the first world figure skating meet held there. The… Continue reading The Loop Emerges. 1964.
Tag: Figure Skating
Black Ice in Tokyo. 1977.
1977 World Championships at The Netropolitan Museum of Figure Skating Pins For the first time in World Figure Skating Championships history, the event was held outside Europe or North America when the 1977 World Championships came to Asia. The city of Tokyo, Japan, welcomed competitors from around the globe to Yoyogi National Stadium for the… Continue reading Black Ice in Tokyo. 1977.
Way Down in the Valley. 1956.
1956 World Championships at The Netropolitan Museum of Figure Skating Pins In a valley in the Bavarian Alps and not far from the Zugspitze, Germany's highest mountain peak, lies the resort of Garmisch-Partenkirchen. It's a city (two towns, actually, that came together in 1935) with a history steeped in winter sports and with an Olympic… Continue reading Way Down in the Valley. 1956.
One and Done (So Far). 1970.
Contested at the then-new Tulsa Assembly Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the 1970 U.S. Figure Skating Championships is the only national championship to date to be hosted by the Sooner State. One and done, it seems. But it was in Tulsa, now more than 50 years ago, that one of the sport’s greatest and most iconic champions, Janet Lynn, claimed the second of her five consecutive national titles.
At Least the Shape is Nice. 1955.
Triangle shapes are not often used for figure skating pins, making the one that commemorates the 1955 World Figure Skating Championships somewhat unique for this reason. But the pin stands out for another, less stellar, reason: the lightweight alloy from which it is made. The pin is decidedly not the calibre of those seen for previous World Championships, nor is it a particularly good representative of the fine city of Vienna, where the event took place at the famed Wiener Eislauf-Verein (Viennese Skating Club). Pins from earlier and later figure skating events held in Vienna are exceptionally well done (see blog links below).