International Skating Union

The International Skating Union (ISU) is the international for competitive disciplines, including , , , and . It was founded in , in , making it one of the oldest international sport federations. The ISU was formed to establish standardized international rules and regulations for the skating disciplines it governs, and to organize international competitions in these disciplines. It is now based in , .

History

The International Skating Union (ISU) was founded in 1892 to govern speed skating and figure skating.

 In 1895, the ISU streamlined its mission to deal only with amateur competitors and not professionals.  The organization hosted its first first amateur skating championship in February 1896 in .  

The and formed a competing organization, the International Skating Union of America (ISUA), in 1907. Within the next two years, twelve European nations had joined the ISU, and the ISUA had only its original members. The ISU had "systematized and arranged" the sport of figure skating In 1911, Canada joined the ISU, leaving the United States as the only major competitor to not be a member.

By 1988, 38 nations had joined the ISU. Within the next few years, the ISU abandoned one of its long-held practices, eliminating the use of mandatory figures in the singles' figure skating competitions and reducing their use in ice dancing.

After the in , the ISU implemented sweeping changes to many of its events. In one of the short track speed skating events, was awarded the gold medal after the disqualification of . Although the delegation protested the disqualification, ISU rules did not allow for a review of the official's call. Several months later, the ISU approved the use of video replay, when available, to review referee decisions. The rules for judging figure skating were also changed as the result of the . According to , president of the ISU, "'Something was wrong there,' ... 'Not just the individual but also the system. It existed for 70 years. Now we are trying to replace one system with another.'" A took effect in 2004, eliminating the perfect scores and instead giving points for various technical elements. Mathematicians conducted a study and concluded that the new voting system is more flawed than the previous one.

ISU Championships

In addition to sanctioning other international competitions, the ISU designates the following competitions each year as "ISU Championships":

• Speed skating:
  • (held only in non- years)

• Figure skating:

Note that events such as the and the are not ISU Championships. However, they do count towards Personal Best scores.

First world championships

Dates and locations of first world championships in various disciplines held under the auspices of the ISU:

• : Speed skating (men only),
• : Figure skating (men only),
• : Figure skating (ladies),
• : Figure skating (pairs), St. Petersburg
• : Speed skating (women),
• : Figure skating (ice dance),
• : Sprint speed skating,
• : Short track speed skating, , UK
• : Synchronized skating,

Organization

As of the summer of 2008, the ISU consisted of 63 member nations, with a governing council of 11. To add any proposal to the agenda of meetings, it must have support from four-fifths of the members. Proposals on the agenda are approved with a two-thirds majority vote.

Presidents of the ISU

• 1882 – 1894
• 1894 – 1924
• 1925 – 1937
• 1937 – 1945
• 1945 – 1953
• 1953 – 1967
• 1967 – 1967
• 1967 – 1980
• 1980 – 1994
• 1994 – present

External links

• ISU official web site
• ISU Judging System - Official site for ISU's judging system (software and manuals)

This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original material was at International Skating Union. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with Figure Skating Wiki, the text of Wikipedia is available under the CC-by-SA License.