Photo courtesy Government of Canada
In 1992, the Government of Canada proclaimed October as Women's History Month. Skate Guard celebrates women in figure skating history with this special timeline of achievements and firsts.
c. 1395 - Lidwina of Schiedam suffers a serious fall while ice skating. She never fully recovers from her injuries. A century later she is memorialized in a famous woodcut by Johannes Brugman. During the Victorian era, her cultus is recognized by the Roman Catholic Church. She is regarded as the Patron Saint of Ice Skating.
Lidwina of Schiedam. Photo courtesy Museum Catharijneconvent.
1594 - Italian typesetter Pietro Bertelli's two volume "Diversarum nationum habitus..." features a curious picture that may be one of the earliest depictions of a woman skating. Although at first glance the man and woman in the pictures appear to be wearing snow-skis to hunt, the fact they don't have poles to propel themselves along is certainly curious. The inscription 'Finmarchorum' likely references the Norwegian region of Finmarchia, and the artist's design of the footwear on the man and woman's feet was likely conceived by an Italian who had never been to Norway, let alone seen skating.
c. 1660 - Dutch women teach the Duke of Monmouth and Princess Mary (later Queen Mary) how to skate the Dutch roll while they are in exile on the Continent during Oliver Cromwell's Protectorate. In exchange, they teach the British royals teach the Dutch women English country dances.
Nell Gwynn. Photo courtesy Landesdigitalisierungsprogramm Sachsen: Altbestand Deutsche Fotothek.
1683 - King Charles II's mistress Nell Gwynn skates with Samuel Pepys on the frozen Thames at The Great Frost Fair.
1754 - French diplomat Jean-Antoine de Mesmes recounts the icy exploits of the Duke of York's daughter Mary, Princess of Orange: "Twas a very extraordinary thing to see the Princess of Orange, with very short petticoats, and those tucked up half way to her waist, and with iron pattins on her feet, learning to slide, sometimes on one foot, sometimes on the other."
Queen Marie Antoinette. Photo courtesy Rijksmuseum.
1776 - Queen Marie Antoinette takes to the ice in the Court of King Louis XVI.
1801 - A century after the infamous Salem Witch Trials, a school teacher from Salem, Massachusetts named Mrs. Rogers is slandered in local newspapers for teaching "her female students the art of skating".
1821 - Dean & Munday's "The Skater's Pocket Companion" is the first English language book marketed to both "ladies and gentlemen [to] attain a thorough knowledge of this healthy winter amusement." It sold for a sixpence. This was somewhat revolutionary at a time when the sport was billed as "the manly and graceful exercise of skating".
1838 - In London, England, a woman took part in a speed skating race against a man. It "created so much confusion that it was found necessary for the police in attendance to interfere, who according conducted her to the bank, where she took off her skates."
Maria Weigel
1851 - Maria Weigel, a German woman, dares to go ice skating in the northeastern Alsatian area of Colmar. The locals are disgusted by her gall and stone her. She suffers serious injuries.
1852 - In his book "The Art Of Skating", George Anderson of the Glasgow Skating Club expressed an attitude typical of men in the Victorian era: "I like to see ladies skate; though, no doubt, the early steps must be rather trying to female nerves and female draperies; but more in idea than in reality, for, with careful instructions, a lady may acquire sufficient skill to move about freely without any extensive ordeal of falls. At the same time, where the opportunity can be had of a private pond, these little difficulties may be more easily surmounted."
1863 - Alice Worts won one of Canada's first women's figure skating competitions in Toronto.
1863 - A man in Layafette, Indiana files for divorce on the grounds of "incompatibility of temper" because his wife 'disobeyed' him and pursued her passion for skating.
1864 - Nancy Fredrika Augusta Edberg, the owner of the first women's bathhouse in Stockholm, begins offering skating lessons to women. At the time skating was considered so undignified for women in Sweden that a fence was constructed to "hide the women". When the future queen of Denmark showed up to take Nancy's classes, the fence came down.
1864 - German born actress Auguste Wilbrandt-Baudius causes a stir in Vienna when she takes to the ice in a pair of trousers.
1870 - Members of The Skating Club allow a restricted number of women to gain membership. One hundred and twenty men and twenty women are permitted to join that year.
Carrie Augusta Moore. Photo courtesy National Portrait Gallery - Smithsonian Institution.
1872 - Carrie Augusta Moore toured Europe, performing a series of shows on ice and rollers with Callie Curtis and E.T. Goodrich. Carrie's success paved the way for another North American woman, Mabel Davidson, to do the same decades later.
1873 - Mary Anne Barker's "Amusements in New Zealand" is the first book by a woman to discuss skating in New Zealand.
1875 - One of the first recorded figure skating competitions on the Continent for women is held in Vienna, Austria. The top two finishers were Frauleins Latzel and Polenski. This competition caused a huge scandal at the Wiener Eislaufverein, resulting in two hundred of Club's members penning letters of complaint, an emergency board meeting and the resignation of the Club's President. The February 25 issue of the "Neues Fremden-Blatt" explained what happened thusly: "Mr. [Demeter] Diamantidi decided the prescribed program and then the dainty [Franz] Belliazi acted as a sort of ice auditioner. A quite numerous audience attended the pretty event. Finally, after the deliberation of the judges, who of course nominated themselves, neither the first nor the second prize was awarded to the lady whose clique [in the audience] felt deserved it most - Miss Hocke, who was awarded third prize. The indigation of the aforesaid arose in a stormy way. The President of the skating club, Dr. [Heinrich] Bach, tried in vain [to gain control over the situation]. In a grandiose spectacle, he named her as the 'first prize nominee' but in the same, she accepted the third prize that was offered to her... It is at least gratifying that at twelve degrees cold, the human heart, for the sake of such a trifle, had such heat, but one almost fears it had to, or the whole ice sheet would melt."
1877 - Lizzie Gallana won a gold medal at a women's figure skating competition, held at an outdoor rink by Blackfriars Street Bridge in London, Ontario.
1878 - Queen Victoria's fourth daughter, Princess Louise, celebrated her birthday with a lavish fancy dress skating party at the Victoria Skating Rink in Montreal, Quebec.
Nadja Franck. Photo courtesy Bibliothèque nationale de France.
1889 - Nadja Franck made history as one of the first winners of an international figure skating competition for women, at a multi-sport event hosted by the Stockholms Allmänna Skridskoklubb in Sweden. Nadja also won women's competitions in her native Finland in 1884 and 1888.
1890 - Douglas Adams' book "Skating" features a special chapter addressed to ladies, penned by a school-teacher from Southport, England named Lilly Cheetham. Lilly was the first woman to pass one of the National Skating Association's tests.
1892 - Fanny Laura Cannan makes history as the first woman to author an English language book on figure skating. Her popular book "Combined Hand-In-Hand Figure Skating", written with Norcliffe G. Thompson, the honorary secretary and treasurer of the Skating Club and Viscount Doneraile, was first printed in 1896 by Longmans, Green & Co. It is historically regarded as one of the first English books dedicated solely to combined or pairs skating.
1902 - Great Britain's Madge Syers makes history as the first woman to compete in an ISU Championship. Her silver-medal winning effort inspires the first ISU Championship For Ladies, an event now regarded as the first World Championships. Madge goes on to win two World titles and two Olympic medals.
Madge Syers
1906 - Austria's Jenny Herz wows the skating establishment at the World Championships in Davos by performing the Jackson Haines spin, wearing an ankle-length dress.
1906 - Isabella Butler of Chicago is the first woman to submit an application to compete in the Championships Of America. This "privilege" was flatly denied, owing to the fact the President of the Amateur Athletic Union Of The United States at the time was the man behind keeping American women out of numerous sporting events, including the swimming and diving events at the 1912 Summer Olympics.
Isabella Butler
1908 - Dorothy Greenhough Smith of Great Britain is the first woman to land an Axel jump at the Olympic Games. Dorothy was also the first woman to pass the National Skating Association's first-class international test and obtain a Gold medal.
1913 - The posh Prince's Skating Club in London is at the epicenter of the suffragette movement. Emmeline Pankhurst holds meetings at the Club and the Duchess of Bedford, the rink's proprietor, flatly refuses to pay thirteen pounds of the rink's taxes "on the ground that women were not represented in Parliament." She was a member of the Women's Tax Resistance League, a group associated with the Women's Social and Political Union which had a 'no vote, no taxes' stance in line with the suffragettes. To pay her debt, a seventy-two ounce silver cup awarded as a prize for figure skating contests was confiscated from her home. It was sold at auction... and bought by the Women's Tax Resistance League's secretary Mrs. Kineton Parker for twenty guineas!
Charlotte Oelschlägel. Photo courtesy New York Public Library.
1915 - In the height of The Great War, German Eisballet star Charlotte Oelschlägel makes history as the first figure skater to perform on Broadway. She goes on to star in the first skating-themed silent film, "The Frozen Warning".
1920 - Ludovika Jakobsson makes history as the first woman from Finland to win an Olympic gold medal in any sport. She goes on to serve as the first female judge at the Winter Olympic Games in 1936.
1924 - At the first Winter Olympic Games in Chamonix, the only event where women could compete was figure skating.
1928 - Constance Wilson and Maude Smith are the first two Canadian women to compete at the World Championships.
1930 - For the first time, women's and pairs figure skating competitions are officially included in the European Championships. Fritzi Burger of Austria and Olga Orgonista of Hungary are the first two women to win gold medals at this event.
Sonja Henie
1936 - Sonja Henie of Norway goes down in history as the first (and to date only) woman to win three consecutive Olympic gold medals and ten World titles in singles skating. She goes on to make millions in America as the star of her own touring ice revue and a host of Twentieth Century-Fox motion pictures.
1939 - Mollie Phillips makes history as the first woman to be elected to the National Skating Association's Council. She went on to serve as the first female referee at the World Championships in 1953.
1940 - Barbara Ann Scott is one of the first women credited with landing a double loop, at a Red Cross Carnival and Masquerade in Kitchener, Ontario. She was only twelve years old at the time.
1942 - Barbara Ann Scott is the first woman to land a double Lutz in competition, at the Canadian Championships in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
1943 - America's Phebe Tucker and Canada's Barbara Ann Scott are the first two skaters to hold all of the Canadian and U.S. test medals.
Barbara Ann Scott. Photo courtesy Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec.
1948 - Barbara Ann Scott of Canada makes history as the first woman to hold the Canadian, North American, European, World and Olympic titles at the same time.
1952 - For the first time, women served as primary coaches to World Champions. Madame Jacqueline Vaudecrane was Jacqueline du Bief's coach in the women's event and Miss Gladys Hogg was Jean Westwood and Lawrence Demmy's coach in ice dance.
1952 - Katherine Miller Sackett is the first American woman to serve as a judge at the World Championships.
1953 - America's Carol Heiss is the first woman to land a double Axel jump in competition.
Jeannette Altwegg. Photo courtesy National Portrait Gallery.
1953 - Olympic Gold Medallist Jeannette Altwegg is the first female figure skater to be inducted as a Commander Of The British Empire (CBE). A year prior, Jeannette was the first woman to be receive the Vandervell Trophy and be given an honorary membership to the National Skating Association.
1955 - Barbara Ann Scott and Frances Dafoe are the first female figure skaters to be inducted to Canada's Sports Hall Of Fame.
1957 - Pierrette Paquin Devine makes history as the first Canadian woman to judge at the World Championships.
1960 - Sonja Henie is the first figure skater to have a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame.
Maribel Vinson Owen. Photo courtesy Harvard University, Radcliffe Archives.
1961 - Maribel Vinson Owen coaches her two daughters, Maribel and Laurence, to gold medals at the U.S. Championships. It was the first time a mother and two daughters all won U.S. senior titles. Shortly after, all three are tragically killed in the crash of Sabena Flight 548.
1962 - Petra Burka is credited as the first woman to land a triple jump in competition, at the Canadian Championships in Toronto, Ontario.
1963 - Theresa Weld Blanchard, the first American woman to win an Olympic figure skating medal, the first woman to pass the USFSA's Eighth (Gold) Test and one of the founders of "Skating" magazine, is the first woman to be given an honorary membership to the United States Figure Skating Association (USFSA).
1965 - Women outnumber the men for the first time on a judging panel at the World Championships. Pamela Davis, Jeanine Donnier-Blanc, Carla Listing, Tatiana Tomalcheva and Jane Vaughn Sullivan are the judges of the women's event that year in Colorado Springs. Donnier-Blanc served on the first five-female judging panel at the European Championships the year prior.
1968 - East Germany's Gaby Seyfert is the first woman to attempt the triple loop jump at an ISU Championship. Though she is short on rotation, the ISU credits her with landing it at the European Championships.
1972 - Anna Sinilkina is the first woman to serve as President of the Figure Skating Section of the USSR Skating Federation.
1973 - Karen Magnussen is the first female figure skater to be awarded the Order Of Canada.
Billie Mitchell. Photo courtesy Skate Canada Archive.
1976 - Billie Mitchell is the first woman to serve as President of the CFSA (Skate Canada).
1976 - Olympic Gold Medallists Sonja Henie, Tenley Albright, Peggy Fleming, Carol Heiss and Andrée Brunet are the first five women to be inducted to the World Figure Skating Hall Of Fame.
1977 - Linda Fratianne is the first woman to include a triple toe-loop in her winning performance at the World Championships. Three years prior, Christine Errath was the first woman to attempt the jump at the World Championships.
1978 - Switzerland's Denise Biellmann is the first woman to land a triple Lutz in an ISU Championship. She receives a perfect 6.0 for technical merit for her achievement at that year's European Championships.
Denise Biellmann
1980 - Japan's Sachie Yuki is the first woman to land a triple/triple combination in competition. She completes a triple toe-loop/triple toe-loop competition at that year's NHK Trophy. The following year, Midori Ito is the first woman to land the combination in an ISU Championship.
1981 - At the European Championships, East Germany's Katarina Witt and West Germany's Manuela Ruben make history as the first two women to land a triple flip in an ISU Championship.
1981 - Three-time Olympic Gold Medallist and ten-time World Champion Irina Rodnina is the first recipient of the ISU's prestigous Jacques Favart Trophy.
1982 - Elaine Zayak 'breaks the system' by successfully completing an unheard of six triple jumps at the World Championships. Her litany of triple toe-loop's and toe-Walley's led to the ISU passing a rule popularly referred to as 'the Zayak rule', limiting the repetition of jumps.
Elaine Zayak
1984 - Canada's Joyce Hisey is the first woman to serve on the ISU's Ice Dancing Technical Committee.
1988 - With partner Rob McCall, Canada's Tracy Wilson makes history as the first woman to win an Olympic medal in ice dancing in their home country.
1988 - Sonia Bianchetti Garbato makes history as the first woman to serve on the ISU Council. She had previously served as a member and chairman of the ISU's Figure Skating Committee, breaking down barriers for women in the male-dominated governing body of international figure skating.
1988 - Canada's Suzanne Morrow-Francis makes history as the first woman to give the Judge's Oath in the Opening Ceremonies of the Winter Olympic Games.
Midori Ito
1989 - Midori Ito of Japan is the first woman to successfully land a triple Axel at the World Championships. Three years later, she becomes the first woman to land a triple Axel at the Winter Olympic Games.
1990 - Constance Wilson Slatkin is posthumously inducted to the CFSA (Skate Canada) Hall Of Fame. She is the first woman to be so honoured.
1991 - At Skate America, Tonya Harding makes history as the first woman to land a triple Axel in combination, the first woman to land a triple Axel in the short program and the first woman to complete two triple Axels in one competition.
1992 - Claire Ferguson is the first woman to serve as President of the U.S. Figure Skating Association (USFS).
1993 - At the World Professional Championships in Landover, Maryland, Midori Ito makes history as the first woman to land a triple Axel in a professional competition.
1998 - Barbara Ann Scott is the first figure skater to be awarded a star on Canada's Walk of Fame.
Shae-Lynn Bourne
1999 - Uzbekistan's Tatiana Malinina, China's Xue Shen and Canada's Shae-Lynn Bourne are the first three women to win gold medals at the Four Continents Championships.
2001 - Michelle Kwan is the first female figure skater to receive the prestigious James E. Sullivan Award, given to America's top amateur athlete in any sport. A figure skater hadn't received the award in fifty-three years.
2002 - Miki Ando of Japan makes history as the first woman to land a quadruple Salchow in competition, at the Junior Grand Prix Final.
2010 - Canada's Tessa Virtue is the first woman to win an Olympic gold medal in ice dancing in her home country.
Katarina Witt. Photo courtesy "Blades On Ice" magazine.
2010 - Two-time Olympic Gold Medallist and four-time World Champion Katarina Witt is the first female figure skater to be inducted to Germany's Sports Hall Of Fame.
2018 - Canada's Meagan Duhamel is the first woman to land a throw quadruple jump at the Winter Olympic Games - just one of over a dozen technical firsts she achieved with three different pairs partners during her competitive career.
2020 - Nathalie Péchalat is the first woman to serve as President of the Fédération française des sports de glace (FFSG).
2023 - Anastasiia Gubanova made history as the first woman from Georgia to win a gold medal at the European Championships.
2023 - Loena Hendrickx made history as the first woman from Belgium to win a medal at the World Championships. At the same event, Kaori Sakamoto became the first Japanese woman to successfully defend a World title.