Technical Merit: A History of Figure Skating Jumps

by Ryan Stevens, Donald Jackson (Foreword)

If you love figure skating, you will not be able to put this book down.

Much has been written about figure skating jumps over the years, but most of it has focused on technique. Precious little has been written from a historical perspective.

From the author of the Amazon Best Seller "The Almanac of Canadian Figure Skating" comes a fascinating book that is jam-packed with stories about the origins and international evolution of figure skating jumps over the course of more than a century.

"Technical Merit: A History of Figure Skating Jumps" includes:

- Essays on the waltz jump, toe-loop, Salchow, loop, flip, Lutz, Axel, pairs throws, twists and side-by-side jumps. There is even a chapter devoted to the history of the backflip!
- Charts detailing a wide variety of technical firsts under the International Skating Union's IJS system.
- Dozens of compelling, little-known facts about the people who have been responsible for some of the biggest technical achievements in the world's most exciting winter sport.

190 pages, Paperback

Published January 18, 2023

About the author

Award-winning author Ryan Stevens is a respected authority on figure skating history. For over a decade, his popular blog Skate Guard has attracted thousands of readers worldwide. Midwest Book Review describes his work as "informative, lively, and scholarly."

Ryan has contributed to Skating magazine and U.S. Figure Skating, and his expertise has been sought by museums and broadcasters, including CBC, NBC and ITV. He is the author of Jackson Haines: The Skating King and Barbara Ann Scott: Queen of the Ice.

Ryan lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia. You can follow his blog Skate Guard on Facebook @SkateGuard and Instagram @SkateGuardBlog.

For more information about Ryan and his books, visit http://www.skateguardblog.com

Reviews

[Sal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Might as well learn about ... jumps!

I enjoy reading books that focus on a specialized topic, and Technical Merit: A History of Figure Skating Jumps definitely qualifies as such a book. Those looking to do a book report on this topic should get it!

Author Ryan Stevens reveres the history of jumps in figure skating, not just the glitzy figure-skating acrobatics of today, and the choice to do a cover featuring Freddie Tomlins from the 1936 Winter Olympics exemplifies that.

Stevens makes the point that jumps in figure skating these days are much more analyzed than they were in the past. There are tons of interesting factoids in Technical Merit, and I perked up when seeing passages on people I recognized such as Brian Boitano, a figure skater whose talent contributed to the evolution of the Lutz jump.

My three favorite sections of the book covered the axel (an “edge jump” that I had heard of before but didn’t know anything about), side-by-side jumps (those always amaze me when I see them on TV), and the throw jump, which became more prominent by the 1980s.

This is truly a unique, well-researched book with lots of helpful references. I would recommend it to anyone who is into figure skating and its technical history encompassing all types of jumps in this competitive sport.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Highly informative. I especially liked reading the pre-WWII history of the different jumps.

[Aaron Goodall · Rating 5 out of 5]

This handy manual is packed full with well researched and well laid out guidance and history on Figure Skating and the moves associated with the sport. The author writes with a clear passion and his knowledge of the sport is clear, and I enjoyed reading about some of the lesser known moves and who first managed to land them and where. I feel that this book would be appreciated by those studying the sport and that it is an important resource for students and those aspiring to rise within the sport.

I found that, seeing as I like a basic foundation of the sport, I was intrigued by the descriptions and this led to find videos online of what the author was describing. I then went on to find some of the quoted competitions and watched footage of the athletes landing the moves, which helped broaden my understanding and the context around what was happening. It was useful to watch these a resource alongside this passionate and worthy journey on figure skating.

[CA · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entertaining and informative look at a big topic in a niche subject. Stevens did a good job of discussing the history of the major jump types (including notes on things like the murkiness of some records in the days before the internet and extensive video recording), from the standard singles jumps to twist lifts. Each section is written fairly like a story rather than a list of facts, and I kept clicking to the next page without any wish to stop - except to look up videos of some of the feats mentioned!

Just a couple of small issues:
-The text has a case of greengrocer's apostrophe with regards to some jump names (toe-loop's and salchow's rather than toe-loops and salchows), which was a little distracting
-This is a bit nitpicky, but it struck me as slightly odd that the 2022 Olympics doping case is brought up as a throwaway mention. I mean, if you are reading this book, you are almost certainly aware of the whole situation and the way it brings into serious question some of the achievements recorded in the book, but it seemed disjointed to not connect it to anything.

I also appreciated both the extensive, easy-to-see citations, and the chart of jumps at the end of the book that seems like it must list any way to jump on ice that someone put a name to! A lot of work was clearly put into the research here.