World Skate is the only governing body in the world for all sports performed on skating wheels. The organisation is the successor of the Fédération Internationale de Roller Sports (FIRS) founded on the 21 of April 1924. Due to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, World Skate banned Russian and Belarusian athletes and officials from its competitions, and will not stage any events in Russia or Belarus in 2022.

Disciplines

World Skate serves as the international governing body for: * Artistic skating * Inline alpine skating * Inline downhill skating * Inline freestyle skating * Inline speed skating *

Inline hockey Roller inline hockey, or inline hockey is a variant of hockey played on a hard, smooth surface, with players using inline skates to move and ice hockey sticks to shoot a hard, plastic hockey puck, puck into their opponent's goal (sport), goal t ...

, also called roller in-line hockey * Rink hockey, also called roller hockey or quad hockey *

Roller derby Roller derby is a roller skating contact sport played by two teams of fifteen members. Roller derby is played by approximately 1,250 amateur leagues worldwide, mostly in the United States. Game play consists of a series of short scrimmages (j ...

* Roller freestyle skating, also called aggressive inline skating or rollerblading * Scootering, also called freestyle scootering * Skateboarding * Skate cross

History

World Skate was established as the (FIPR) on 21 April 1924 as an organ for creating multinational European championship tournaments for roller sports. The founding meeting was organized by Fred Renkewitz and Otto Myer and included representatives from France, Germany, Great Britain, and Switzerland. Renkewitz served as president of the FIPR from its founding in 1924 until 1960. The FIPR began organizing World Championship events in the later 1930s, with the first Rink Hockey World Championship hosted in Stuttgart in 1936. The inaugural Speed Skating World Championship was held in 1937–38, with events in

Monza Monza (, ; lmo, label= Lombard, Monça, locally ; lat, Modoetia) is a city and ''comune'' on the River Lambro, a tributary of the Po in the Lombardy region of Italy, about north-northeast of Milan. It is the capital of the Province of M ...

, Italy;

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, United Kingdom; and Ferrara, Italy. After a pause to all sport competition during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, the World Championships resumed in 1947 and the first

Artistic Skating World Championship The Artistic Skating World Championships ('Worlds') is an annual artistic roller skating competition sanctioned by World Skate (previously the International Roller Sports Federation; FIRS) in which elite figure skaters compete for the title of ...

was held in Washington, D.C., United States. During the 1960s, the organization was recognized by the

International Olympic Committee The International Olympic Committee (IOC; french: link=no, Comité international olympique, ''CIO'') is a non-governmental sports organisation based in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is constituted in the form of an association under the Swis ...

and the governing body for all roller skating sports and renamed as the (FIRS). It gained member status in the General Association of International Sports Federations (GAISF) in the 1970s. Artistic skating, rink hockey, and speed skating remained the principal sports regulated by FIRS until inline hockey was included in the 1990s, with the first Inline Hockey World Championship held in 1995. At the FIRS Congress in 2000, a vote approved the modification of the name from ''Fédération Internationale de Roller Skating'' to ; the FIRS acronym remained unchanged. The FIRS continued to expand the scope of its governance to additional roller sport disciplines and, by 2017, it served as the governing body of ten sports. The inaugural World Roller Games in 2017 served as the world championship for all ten of the FIRS' governed sports, merging the various world championship tournaments into a two week skating event hosted in Nanjing, China. The second World Roller Games were held in 2019 in Barcelona, Spain. The FIRS rebranded as World Skate in June 2017. Along with the rebrand, the World Roller Games were renamed the World Skate Games. The 2022 World Skate Games in Argentina will be the first edition to utilize the new name. Due to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, World Skate banned Russian and Belarusian athletes and officials from its competitions, and will not stage any events in Russia or Belarus in 2022.

Competitions

World Skate Games

Since 2017, World Skate has organized the bi-annual World Skate Games, comprising all roller sport disciplines governed by World Skate. The World Skate Games are a multi-sport event that serves as the World Championship of 11 disciplines: alpine, artistic, inline downhill, inline freestyle, inline hockey, rink hockey, roller derby, roller freestyle, scooter, skateboard, and speed. The first edition of the event was hosted in

Nanjing Nanjing (; , Mandarin pronunciation: ), Postal Map Romanization, alternately romanized as Nanking, is the capital of Jiangsu Provinces of China, province of the China, People's Republic of China. It is a sub-provincial city, a megacity, and t ...

, China during September 2017 as the 'World Roller Games.' Over 3,000 athletes, 193 national teams, and 61 national federations participated in the fifteen-day festival, which named world champions in ten sports. The second edition of the World Roller Games attracted more than 4,000 athletes to

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ...

, Spain during July 2019. Seventy-six national federations participated in eleven sports. The third edition of the event – the first to be contested under the rebranded 'World Skate Games' moniker – was originally scheduled to take place in during October and November 2021 in the host cities of Vicente López, Buenos Aires and

San Juan, Argentina San Juan () is the capital and largest city of the Argentine province of San Juan in the Cuyo region, located in the Tulúm Valley, west of the San Juan River, at above mean sea level, with a population of around 112,000 as per the (over ...

. It was later announced that the Games would be postponed until 2022 due to scheduling conflicts caused by the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified ...

but were expected to be hosted in Argentina as originally planned.

Olympic Games

In 1992, roller hockey was played at the

1992 Summer Olympics The 1992 Summer Olympics ( es, Juegos Olímpicos de Verano de 1992, ca, Jocs Olímpics d'estiu de 1992), officially known as the Games of the XXV Olympiad ( es, Juegos de la XXV Olimpiada, ca, Jocs de la XXV Olimpíada) and commonly known as ...

as a

demonstration sport A demonstration sport, or exhibition sport, is a sport which is played to promote it, rather than as part of standard medal competition. This occurs commonly during the Olympic Games, but may also occur at other sporting events. Demonstration spor ...

. Skateboarding events have been introduced for the 2020 Summer Olympics, with two events: park and

street A street is a public thoroughfare in a built environment. It is a public parcel of land adjoining buildings in an urban context, on which people may freely assemble, interact, and move about. A street can be as simple as a level patch of d ...

. Much like BMX cycling, the park event will feature what resembles an empty swimming pool. Competitors will have three timed runs for tricks. On street, there will be ramps and rails for routines and tricks. A total of 80 spots will be available, with a maximum of 20 competitors per event. Each country may enter up to three athletes in each event.

Youth Olympic Games

Roller sport made its debut at the

Youth Olympic Games The Youth Olympic Games (YOG) is an international multi-sport event for athletes between 15 and 18 years old, organized by the International Olympic Committee. The games are held every four years in staggered summer and winter events consisten ...

in 2018, in which two

speed skating Speed skating is a competitive form of ice skating in which the competitors race each other in travelling a certain distance on skates. Types of speed skating are long track speed skating, short track speed skating, and marathon speed skati ...

events were added as medal sports.

World Games

World Skate has been represented at the

World Games The World Games are an international multi-sport event comprising sports and sporting disciplines that are not contested in the Olympic Games. They are usually held every four years, one year after a Summer Olympic Games, over the course of 11 ...

since the first games, held in

1981 Events January * January 1 ** Greece enters the European Economic Community, predecessor of the European Union. ** Palau becomes a self-governing territory. * January 10 – Salvadoran Civil War: The FMLN launches its first major off ...

. Both artistic skating and inline speed skating track have been featured at every holding of the Games, and either roller hockey or inline hockey has been featured at all but the 1997 World Games. The International World Games Association (IWGA) announced on 16 April 2018 that four roller sports would be included in the 30 official sports competing for gold at the 2021 World Games, during 15–25 June in

Birmingham, Alabama Birmingham ( ) is a city in the north central region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Birmingham is the seat of Jefferson County, Alabama's most populous county. As of the 2021 census estimates, Birmingham had a population of 197,575, down 1% fr ...

. Birmingham marks the 40th anniversary of the event which will feature 3,600 athletes from more than 100 countries. This the first time the

has returned to the United States since 1981. On the programme for the 2021 World Games are four roller sports disciplines; artistic skating, inline hockey, and two speed skating types, road and track. World Skate is the only sport-type on the World Games programme to be represented in three separate clusters, with speed skating categorized with "Trend Sports," artistic skating with "Artistic Sports," and inline hockey with "Ball Sports."

World Urban Games

World Championships

Inline Alpine World Championship The Inline Alpine World Championships is the premier inline alpine championship organised by World Skate. The competition has been recognized since 2012 and has taken place roughly biennially since. It has been included in all occurrences of the ...

Inline Downhill World Championship The Inline Downhill World Championships is the premier inline downhill championship organised by World Skate. The competition has been held annually since 2000 and has been part of World Skate's World Skate Games since 2017. World Skate has orga ...

* Inline Hockey World Championship * Inline Speed Skating World Championship *

Roller Derby World Championship Roller may refer to: Birds *Roller, a bird of the family Coraciidae * Roller (pigeon), a domesticated breed or variety of pigeon Devices * Roller (agricultural tool), a non-powered tool for flattening ground * Road roller, a vehicle for com ...

* Roller Freestyle Skating World Championship * Roller Hockey World Cup * World Scootering Championship * World Skateboarding Championship

Regional events

Single-sport events

* 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

Asian Games The Asian Games, also known as Asiad, is a continental multi-sport event held every four years among athletes from all over Asia. The Games were regulated by the Asian Games Federation (AGF) from the first Games in New Delhi, India, until th ...

Pan American Games The Pan American Games (also known colloquially as the Pan Am Games) is a continental multi-sport event in the Americas featuring summer sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The competition is hel ...

In May 2019, Panam Sports announced that skateboarding had been removed from the roller sports program for the

2019 Pan American Games The 2019 Pan American Games ( es, Juegos Panamericanos de 2019, links=no), officially the XVIII Pan American Games and commonly known as the Lima 2019 Pan-Am Games or Lima 2019 ( qu, Limaq 2019), were a multi-sport event governed by the Panam Spo ...

Lima Lima ( ; ), originally founded as Ciudad de Los Reyes (City of The Kings) is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín Rivers, in the desert zone of the central coastal part of t ...

because World Skate could not guarantee that the best possible athletes would be in attendance. World Skate had scheduled a World Tour event with dates that overlapped with the Pan American Games. Tensions between the organizations were already high, as World Skate had refused to authorize the competition as an Olympic qualifier.

Continental Areas

World Skate comprises five continental areas, each involved in organising their own regional competitions: *

World Skate Africa In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...

* World Skate America (CSP Confederacion Sudamericana de Patinaje) * World Skate Asia * World Skate Europe * World Skate Oceania

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:World Skate IOC-recognised international federations Roller skating organizations Roller sports Inline skating Artistic roller skating Inline hockey Roller derby Roller hockey Scootering Skateboarding