2013 Nebelhorn Trophy Anna Afonkina IMG 7118

The Nebelhorn Trophy is an international senior-level

figure skating competition A figure skating competition is a judged sports competition in figure skating. Types of figure skating competitions International International competitions sanctioned by the International Skating Union (ISU) are governed by the union's rules. ...

organized by the

Deutsche Eislauf-Union The German Ice Skating Union (german: Deutsche Eislauf-Union, DEU) is the national amateur association for figure skating and ice dancing in Germany. The various German ice sports associations constitute the membership of the DEU; individuals canno ...

and held annually in

Oberstdorf Oberstdorf ( Low Alemannic: ''Oberschdorf'') is a municipality and skiing and hiking town in Germany, located in the Allgäu region of the Bavarian Alps. It is the southernmost settlement in Germany and one of its highest towns. At the&nbs ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. It became part of the

ISU Challenger Series The ISU Challenger Series is a series of international figure skating competitions. Established by the International Skating Union in the 2014–15 season, it is a group of senior-level events ranked below the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating. E ...

in the 2014–15 season. The competition is named after the

Nebelhorn The Nebelhorn is a mountain in the Allgäu Alps in Germany, near the village of Oberstdorf. It lends its name to the Nebelhorn Trophy figure skating competition and the Nebelhorn Classics a freeride race event. Also the Nine Knights freeski co ...

, a nearby mountain. It is usually one of the first international senior competitions of the season. Skaters are entered by their respective national federations and compete in four disciplines: men's singles, ladies' singles,

pairs Concentration, also known as Memory, Shinkei-suijaku (Japanese meaning "nervous breakdown"), Matching Pairs, Match Match, Match Up, Pelmanism, Pexeso or simply Pairs, is a card game in which all of the cards are laid face down on a surface and tw ...

, and

ice dancing Ice dance (sometimes referred to as ice dancing) is a discipline of figure skating that historically draws from ballroom dancing. It joined the World Figure Skating Championships in 1952, and became a Winter Olympic Games medal sport in 1976. A ...

. The Fritz-Geiger-Memorial Trophy is presented to the team with the highest placements across all disciplines.

History

The Nebelhorn Trophy competition has been held annually since 1969 and is thus one of the oldest international figure skating competitions that remains in existence. In its early years, this competition was paired with a now-defunct French event, the Grand Prix International St. Gervais (unrelated to the current ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating event), to form the Coupe des Alpes, with many of the same skaters participating in both events and a team trophy presented to the country with the highest combined placements across both competitions. During the 1980s and early 1990s, before the establishment of a regular junior international competition circuit, younger skaters were often sent to these events as their first senior international competition assignments. ''

International Figure Skating Figure skating is a sport with participants across the world. Originally based in North America and Europe, the sport has experienced a major expansion in the countries of East Asia. The international governing body of the sport is the Internation ...

'' calls the event "unique" because they are, along with their medals, are awarded trophies. In recent years, the Nebelhorn Trophy has also been used by the

International Skating Union The International Skating Union (ISU) is the international governing body for competitive ice skating disciplines, including figure skating, synchronized skating, speed skating, and short track speed skating. It was founded in Scheveningen, Net ...

to experiment with new judging and scoring systems for figure skating. Specifically, the 1997 competition was used as the test event for the switch from the "best of majority" ordinal system to the "one-by-one" method; the 2002 event was used for an initial test of the

ISU Judging System The ISU Judging System (or the International Judging System (IJS)), occasionally referred to as the Code of Points (COP) system, is the scoring system that has been used since 2004 to judge the figure skating disciplines of men's and ladies' sin ...

which was then under development, and the 2003 event was the first competition where that system was used to determine the official results; and the 2006 event was used for a trial of using separate panels of judges for technical elements and program components. The competition also serves as a testing ground for judges working towards international status. The 2009 competition was used as the final qualifying opportunity for the 2010 Winter Olympics and the 2013 event served the same purpose for the 2014 Olympics and the

2018 Olympics , nations = 93 , athletes = 2,922 (1,680 men and 1,242 women) , events = 102 in 7 sports (15 disciplines) , opening = , closing = , opened_by = President Moon Jae-in , cauldron = Kim Yun-a , stadium = Pyeongchang Olympic Stadium , winte ...

. The Nebelhorn Trophy became part of the

in the 2014–15 season.

Medalists

CS:

Men

Ladies

Pairs

Ice dancing

References

Sources

* Benjamin T. Wright, ''Skating in America''.

External links

Deutsche Eislauf-Union (German Ice Skating Union)

1997 Results

2001 Results
{{ISU Challenger Series ISU Challenger Series International figure skating competitions hosted by Germany