World Skate facts for kids
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| Abbreviation | WS |
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| Predecessor | Federation Internationale de Roller Sports |
| Founded | 21 April 1924 |
| Type | Sports federation |
| Legal status | Governing body of Roller sports |
| Headquarters | Lausanne, Vaud, Switzerland |
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Region served
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Worldwide |
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Membership
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130 |
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Official languages
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English, French, Spanish |
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President
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Sabatino Aracu |
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Vice-Presidents
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Secretary
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Roberto Marotta |
| Affiliations | ARISF |
World Skate is the main group in charge of all sports done on wheels, like roller skates and skateboards. It's the only organization of its kind in the world! It took over from an older group called the Fédération Internationale de Roller Sports (FIRS), which started way back on April 21, 1924.
Because of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, World Skate decided that athletes and officials from Russia and Belarus could not join their competitions. They also did not hold any events in Russia or Belarus in 2022.
Contents
What Sports Does World Skate Cover?
World Skate is the international leader for many exciting sports. These include:
- Artistic skating: This is like ice skating, but on roller skates! Skaters do spins and jumps.
- Inline alpine skating: Racing down hills on inline skates.
- Inline downhill skating: Similar to alpine, but focused on speed down steep slopes.
- Inline freestyle skating: Doing cool tricks and moves on inline skates.
- Inline hockey: A fast-paced team sport played on inline skates.
- Inline speed skating: Racing on inline skates to be the fastest.
- Roller derby: A contact sport played on roller skates, often on an oval track.
- Roller freestyle skating: Also known as aggressive inline skating or rollerblading, where skaters do stunts.
- Roller hockey: A team sport played on traditional quad roller skates.
- Scootering: Performing tricks and stunts on scooters.
- Skateboarding: Riding and doing tricks on a skateboard.
- Skate cross: A race where skaters go over obstacles.
How World Skate Started
World Skate began on April 21, 1924. It was first called the Fédération Internationale de Patinage a Roulettes (FIPR). Its goal was to create big European championships for roller sports. Fred Renkewitz and Otto Myer helped start the first meeting. People from France, Germany, Great Britain, and Switzerland were there. Renkewitz was the president of FIPR for a long time, from 1924 until 1960.
The FIPR started organizing World Championship events in the late 1930s. The first Rink Hockey World Championship was held in Stuttgart in 1936. The first Speed Skating World Championship happened in 1937–38. Events were held in Monza, Italy; London, United Kingdom; and Ferrara, Italy. After a break during World War II, the World Championships started again in 1947. The first Artistic Skating World Championship was held in Washington, D.C., United States.
In the 1960s, the International Olympic Committee recognized the organization. It was renamed the Fédération Internationale de Roller Skating (FIRS). It became a member of the General Association of International Sports Federations (GAISF) in the 1970s.
Artistic skating, rink hockey, and speed skating were the main sports FIRS managed. Then, inline hockey was added in the 1990s. The first Inline Hockey World Championship was in 1995. In 2000, the group changed its name slightly to Fédération Internationale de Roller Sports. The FIRS acronym stayed the same.
FIRS kept adding more roller sports. By 2017, it was in charge of ten different sports. The first World Roller Games in 2017 brought all these sports together. It was a huge two-week event in Nanjing, China. The second World Roller Games happened in 2019 in Barcelona, Spain.
In June 2017, FIRS changed its name to World Skate. The World Roller Games were also renamed the World Skate Games. The 2022 World Skate Games in Argentina will be the first time the new name is used.
Exciting Competitions
World Skate organizes many big events for roller sports.
World Skate Games
Since 2017, World Skate has held the World Skate Games every two years. This huge event includes all the roller sports that World Skate manages. The World Skate Games are like the Olympics for roller sports. They are the World Championship for 11 different sports. These include alpine, artistic, inline downhill, inline freestyle, inline hockey, rink hockey, roller derby, roller freestyle, scooter, skateboard, and speed skating.
The first event was in Nanjing, China, in September 2017. It was called the 'World Roller Games.' Over 3,000 athletes from 193 national teams took part. They named world champions in ten sports.
The second World Roller Games had over 4,000 athletes in Barcelona, Spain, in July 2019. Seventy-six countries joined in eleven sports.
The third event, the first to be called 'World Skate Games,' was planned for October and November 2021. It was supposed to be in Vicente López, Buenos Aires and San Juan, Argentina. But it was moved to 2022 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is still expected to be held in Argentina.
Roller Sports at the Olympics
In 1992, roller hockey was played at the 1992 Summer Olympics. It was a demonstration sport, which means it was shown but not for medals.
Skateboarding events were added to the 2020 Summer Olympics. There are two types of events: park and street. The park event looks like an empty swimming pool. Skaters do tricks in three timed runs. In the street event, there are ramps and rails for routines and tricks. A total of 80 spots are available for skaters. Each country can send up to three athletes for each event.
Youth Olympic Games
Roller sports first appeared at the Youth Olympic Games in 2018. Two speed skating events were added as medal sports.
World Games
World Skate has been part of the World Games since they first started in 1981. Artistic skating and inline speed skating have been in every World Games. Roller hockey or inline hockey has been in almost all of them.
The International World Games Association (IWGA) said on April 16, 2018, that four roller sports would be in the 2021 World Games. These games were held from June 15–25 in Birmingham, Alabama. This was the 40th anniversary of the event. It had 3,600 athletes from over 100 countries. This was the first time the World Games returned to the United States since 1981.
Four roller sports were on the program for the 2021 World Games. These were artistic skating, inline hockey, and two types of speed skating: road and track. World Skate is the only sport type at the World Games that is in three different groups. Speed skating is with "Trend Sports," artistic skating with "Artistic Sports," and inline hockey with "Ball Sports."
World Urban Games
World Championships
World Skate also holds many specific World Championships for each sport:
- Artistic Skating World Championship
- Inline Alpine World Championship
- Inline Downhill World Championship
- Inline Hockey World Championship
- Inline Speed Skating World Championship
- Roller Derby World Championship
- Roller Freestyle Skating World Championship
- Roller Hockey World Cup
- World Scootering Championship
- World Skateboarding Championship
Regional Events
There are also big roller sport events held in different parts of the world.
Single-Sport Events
These events focus on one type of roller sport:
- Asian Inline Speed Skating Championship, since 1985
- African Inline Speed Skating Championship, since 2017
- European Inline Speed Skating Championship, since 1989
- Ocean Inline Speed Skating Championship
Multi-Sport Events
These events include many different sports:
- Asian Games
- Pan American Games
In May 2019, Panam Sports announced that skateboarding was removed from the roller sports program for the 2019 Pan American Games in Lima. This happened because World Skate could not promise that the best athletes would be there. World Skate had scheduled another event at the same time as the Pan American Games.
World Skate's Continental Areas
World Skate has five main areas around the world. Each area helps organize its own regional competitions:
- World Skate Africa
- World Skate America (CSP Confederacion Sudamericana de Patinaje)
- World Skate Asia
- World Skate Europe
- World Skate Oceania
See also
