Figure Skating Resources
Learn Stuff
@sywtwfs - start here, as So You Want To Watch Figure Skating has lots of useful basic info, plus competition times + how to watch them, as well as breakdowns of rule updates
the-real-xmonster’s tech posts on jumps, spins, and steps (+spirals)
illyria-and-her-pet’s detailed guide to steps and step sequence breakdowns
Skate Guard Blog is a cornucopia of figure skating history posts
ISU handbooks - sometimes you just gotta go to the source
ice-dance.com has dance pattern information and charts, as well as a listing of compulsory/short/rhythm dances for each season back to 1968 ( shared by beautifulstorms - thanks!)
And you know, there is always Wikipedia; usual caveats about it aside, it has articles on everything from the 6.0 system to fours skating to costumes to particular elements
Search Results and Technical Elements
Figure Skating Elements Search - search elements by skater/year/competition from 2003 to 2023. The site is Japanese, but the search form is in English, so it should be easy to figure out
Skater-Stats - search competition results by skater or competition
RinkResults - search competition results by skater/competition/competition series/country represented, as well as highest-scoring elements; also attempts to provide a video for every program on the same page as the score sheet (shared by aitlu, thanks!)
Search Costumes and Creative Commons Photos
@figureskatingcostumes - Costumes tagged by skater, discipline, year, country, and sometimes other attributes like details or color.
Wikimedia Commons - sorted by skater/year/costume color (here) /element (here)/etc. There are a couple of photographers who upload regularly
Phantom Kabocha’s Photos - sorted by skater/competition, 2012-present. Many beautiful photos, and they are all CC-by!
Search Music
If you are looking for a specific song, I would recommend using Wikipedia’s advanced search and doing a search in the ‘Figure skaters’ category
Figure skating wiki - has most music used by the most popular skaters, typically more recent ones
Frogs on Ice - music for well known skaters, 1992~1996
Tadaaki Masuda’s list - music by season and sometimes by discipline, 1979~1997
Maeno’s Skating Music Page - sorted by season/discipline/music source, 1997~2006, covers quite a few skaters
Skate Music List - you can’t search any more now that it’s only on the Internet Archive, but the drop-downs by season/name/music source still get you to pages. 1976~2006 or so.
Selected Video Sources
ISU - some technical videos and full replays of recent competitions, and as of this season, individual videos of skaters/pairs. You may need a VPN to access some replays depending on your country
HD full Olympic replays
Olympic Channel - popular Olympic programs (many under ‘Music Monday’) and some misc. things like fluff and Olympic compilations
Olympic Channel Figure Skating - same type of content as above, except without all the other sports mixed in on the channel
Mintaka Alnilam - HD videos from the 90s and early 2000s 🤩 Midori Ito (and many others!) in 1080p!
Mintaka Alnilam Annex - other great historical videos that are less HD than on their main channel
3axel1996 - 1977 to 1998, early 2000s
floskate - mostly 1960s to 1990s, but also some earlier footage
Skate Guard Blog - the blog’s Youtube channel; mostly 90s but also things like recent Stars on Ice programs
Hyacinth B. - mostly full US TV replays, mostly 90s and early 2000s
GoldenAgeofFS - late 60s to early 2000s
sabinfire - 2014 to 2017, good quality videos and some full replays
On-Ice Perspectives - videos filmed on ice with the skaters
The Skating Session - recent videos are mostly competition discussion, but I am recommending their archival videos from the 1980s~2000s, including some US nationals videos with alternate angles/no commentary
germann1968 - has uploaded an old ISU training video series on what the different components are supposed to mean, including examples (there is a more modern one on the ISU channel as well)
