Taking Our Sport Back: Compulsory Figures Part I

In 1971 Trixie Schuba, possibly one of the best skaters of compulsory figures in history of the sport, beat Janet Lynn, the pixieish spectacular star of freeskating, faced off at Worlds. Trixie won because of her superior skills in the compulsory figures which heavily weighted the scores. But Janet Lynn was the far more popular skater....

By 1990 compulsory figures were dead...and gone. The ISU saw ending figures as freeing the free skaters to greater expression---and to be more appealing to TV. At the end of this video you'll see some US skaters were very bitter about it..

Then after the last compulsory figure was skated in the 1990 Worlds....

The century of compulsory figures in competition came to an end.