Skate skiing

Skate skiing is a technique in cross-country skiing where the leg kick is made using the skating step. This style has been established as a revolutionary development of cross-country skiing since the mid-1980s and allows faster movement compared to the normal style. Since 1985, international competitions have been held separately for classic and skating.

In contrast to classic skiing, skating skis can be fully optimized for gliding and do not need a grip zone in the center. The skis are typically slightly shorter, while the poles used are slightly longer. Although there are skis designed to accommodate both classic and skating techniques as a compromise, recreational skiers generally use separate equipment for each. Unlike classic trails, skating trails are not groomed but are simply rolled to a sufficient width, providing less lateral stability for the skis. Skating technique is considered more challenging to learn and more physically demanding, especially on climbs, where even the slowest pace requires significant energy. To train for skating during the summer, athletes use roller skis or engage in other activities related to inline skating, particularly those focused on performance.

Two techniques have always been part of athlete's technique in cross country skiing: the one-sided skate strides (during changes of direction) and two-sided ones (in the final sprint). In the early 1970s, the first signs of the increased use of the skate stride could be observed. Strictly speaking, the origins of this form of movement lie even earlier: the single pole catapult technique in medieval Scandinavia used two skis of different lengths. The longer one, the glider, was used for gliding and the shorter one, the andor, was used mainly for pushing off and was covered with skins. The locomotion, in which a shearing of the skis was advantageous, bears a marked resemblance to the asymmetrical form of movement used in skating today. An early reference to skate skiing is from Östersund in 1894, performed by Nijllá Mattsson Rimpi (SvD 2025-03-07).

Before the advent of skating, steady improvements in training methods and equipment, as well as the machine-tracking of trails, had led to an increase in running speed and greater use of the double pole thrust in the 20th century, with greater emphasis on upper arm strength. Some races were won on skis prepared exclusively for gliding, with no leg push in the track. New forms of movement developed out of the drive for even higher running speeds.

From 1978, especially the stronger popular skiers increasingly used the half-skate step in icy and fast conditions, where one ski stays in the track and the other is sheared out to the side. This technique was initially called Finnstep or Siitonenstep, after Pauli Siitonen, one of the first to use it. This also led to an innovation in the preparation of cross-country ski trails – half-tracked, half-rolled. Later, other forms of movement outside the track were developed. In the World Cup, the US skier Bill Koch was the first to recognize the advantages of this technique. He won the Engadin Marathon with it in 1981 and the overall ranking of the FIS Cross-Country World Cup in 1982.

In the period that followed, there were intense discussions about regulations, with calls for a prohibition on the skating technique emerging from within the amateur sporting community. The diagonal stride (the main form of movement in the classic style) was about to disappear completely from competitive sports, and this could have weakened the possibility of the popular athlete identifying himself with the elite sport. At the 1985 World Championships in Seefeld, an excessively difficult cross-country ski trail was deliberately chosen, where no other tehnique than the seemed possible. The overwhelming majority of skiers nevertheless used the new technique and thus ensured the final breakthrough.

For the 1985/86 season, the FIS introduced parallel competitions in classic and free technique, with half of the World Cup competitions being held in one of the two techniques. The 1987 World Championships in Oberstdorf and the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary were the first major events with the coexistence of classical and skating competitions. In the biathlon and Nordic combined, it was agreed that all competitions would be held in the free technique.

As before, most of the top skiers in the cross-country skiing disciplines train in both techniques. The FIS also counteracted specialization by not awarding separate trophies for each technique in the cross-country skiing World Cup, but by holding the same number of races in the classic and free techniques in all competitions. In 1988, pursuit races were introduced, which are run first in the classic technique, then in the free technique. In this case, the skating race is included in the so-called chase start, which means that the start is made according to the time intervals of the first race. Since 2003, this discipline has existed as double pursuit or ski duathlon. Here, the competitions are no longer held on two consecutive days, but directly one after the other, and the change of equipment is also part of the competition.