60 free Ice Skating trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
40 free ice skating trivia questions with answers. This ice skating trivia quiz glides from 4,000-year-old bone skates in Finland and the Dutch steel blade to the world's first mechanically frozen rink, the Zamboni and the Rockefeller Center rink. It covers figure skating's jumps and their inventors, the Axel, Salchow and quad, compulsory figures, and the champions from Ulrich Salchow, Madge Syers and Sonja Henie to Dick Button, Peggy Fleming, Katarina Witt, Kristi Yamaguchi, Michelle Kwan, Yuzuru Hanyu and Nathan Chen. Speed skating gets its share too: the 400-metre oval, short track's 111-metre loop, Eric Heiden's five golds, Apolo Ohno's eight medals and the Netherlands' legendary Elfstedentocht. Plus Torvill and Dean's Boléro, the Harding-Kerrigan scandal and the Ice Capades. Easy questions suit family and Winter Olympics parties; the harder ones on dates and firsts will test skating devotees. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries before publishing.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Research suggests the earliest ice skating took place more than 4,000 years ago in which country?
Finland
Bone skates about 3,500 years old have also been found at a Bronze Age site in north-west China.
Q 02Which people are credited with adding sharpened edges to ice skates in the 13th or 14th century?
The Dutch
Before steel blades, skaters in London improvised with butchers' bones.
Q 03The world's first mechanically frozen ice rink, the Glaciarium, opened in 1876 in which city?
London
John Gamgee, a veterinarian, built it in a tent in Chelsea after studying refrigeration on a trip to look at Texas cattle fever.
Q 04Figure skating was the first winter sport at the Olympic Games, debuting at which Games?
London 1908 (Summer)
Men's and women's singles were two of four skating events held that year.
Q 05Which American is called the 'father of modern figure skating' for his mid-1800s innovations?
Jackson Haines
He introduced ballet-inspired movement and found his warmest welcome in Vienna.
Q 06Which jump is the only basic figure skating jump with a forward take-off?
The Axel
That gives it an extra half rotation, so a triple is really three and a half turns.
Q 07Norwegian Axel Paulsen first performed his namesake jump in 1882 while wearing what?
Speed skates
It happened at the first international figure skating competition, in Vienna.
Q 08How many World Championships did Swedish skater Ulrich Salchow, namesake of the Salchow jump, win?
Ten
He skipped 1906 in Munich, fearing biased judging against a German rival, and also won nine European titles.
Q 09Madge Syers prompted the creation of a separate women's world championship after doing what in 1902?
Entering the men's event and taking silver
She won the first two ladies' events and the 1908 Olympic title.
Q 10How many Olympic gold medals did Norway's Sonja Henie win in women's singles?
Three
She won in 1928, 1932 and 1936, then became one of Hollywood's highest-paid stars.
Q 11How old was Sonja Henie when she finished last of eight at her first Olympics in 1924?
Eleven
Her furrier father gave up his business to manage her career.
Q 12Which skater landed the first competitive double Axel in 1948 and the first triple jump in 1952?
Dick Button
He then spent more than 40 years as ABC's famously blunt figure skating analyst.
Q 13Compulsory figures, which gave figure skating its name, were dropped by the ISU in which year?
1990
Until 1947 they made up 60 percent of a skater's score.
Q 14Torvill and Dean's gold-medal Boléro at the 1984 Sarajevo Olympics earned how many perfect 6.0 scores?
Q 21Nancy Kerrigan was attacked on January 6, 1994 with what weapon?
A police baton
She recovered to win silver in Lillehammer behind Oksana Baiul; Harding was banned for life.
Q 22Hanyu's 2018 win made him the first man in 66 years to defend Olympic gold, since whom?
Dick Button
He was also the first Asian men's Olympic champion and won four straight Grand Prix Finals.
Q 23Which 2022 Olympic champion defended a world title during his spring break from Yale?
Nathan Chen
He was the first singles skater to win both team and individual gold at the same Games.
Twelve
More than 24 million Britons watched; the pair from Nottingham had been an insurance clerk and a policeman.
Q 15Ice dance became a Winter Olympic medal sport in which year?
1976
It had joined the World Championships in 1952 and grew out of ballroom dance steps.
Q 16Which East German skater won back-to-back Olympic golds in 1984 and 1988?
Katarina Witt
Between 1984 and 1988 she won ten golds in eleven major international events.
Q 17Peggy Fleming was the only American to win gold at the Winter Olympics of which year?
1968
Her coach had died in the 1961 plane crash that killed the entire US figure skating team.
Q 18Kristi Yamaguchi's 1992 Albertville title made her the first Asian American to do what?
Win Winter Olympic gold
She later won Dancing with the Stars, as did short-track skater Apolo Ohno.
Q 19How many world championships did Michelle Kwan win, tying Carol Heiss for the most by an American?
Five
She also took nine US titles but never Olympic gold, winning silver in 1998 and bronze in 2002.
Q 20In 1991, Tonya Harding became the first American woman to land which jump in international competition?
The triple Axel
Only Japan's Midori Ito had done it before her.
Q 24Which American landed the first clean, fully rotated quadruple Axel in 2022?
Ilia Malinin
The quad Axel means four and a half rotations in the air.
Q 25How long is a standard long-track speed skating oval?
400 metres
Short track uses a 111.12-metre loop on a rink the size of a hockey rink.
Q 26Speed skating first reached the Olympic programme at the 1924 winter sports week in which town?
Chamonix
American Charles Jewtraw won the first gold; one Nordic country took the other four.
Q 27How many individual gold medals did Eric Heiden win at the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics?
Five
That was more than any nation except two managed at those Games; he also delivered the athletes' oath.
Q 28How many Winter Olympic medals did short-track skater Apolo Ohno win?
Eight
Two gold, two silver and four bronze; he also won Dancing with the Stars in 2007.
Q 29Short-track speed skating first appeared at the Winter Olympics as a demonstration sport in which city?
Calgary
Four to six skaters race together on the 111-metre oval.
Q 30The Elfstedentocht, a nearly 200 km skating tour, takes place in which Dutch province?
Friesland
It needs 15 cm of natural ice along the whole route and has been held only three times in the last 50 years, most recently in 1997.