Ice skating is moving on ice by using ice skates. It can be done for a variety of reasons, including health benefits, leisure, traveling, and various sports. Ice skating occurs both on specially prepared indoor and outdoor tracks, as well as on naturally occurring bodies of frozen water, such as lakes and rivers.

A study by Federico Formenti of the University of Oxford suggests that the earliest ice skating happened in southern Finland about 4000 years ago."The first humans traveling on ice: an energy-saving strategy?". http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1095-8312.2007.00991.x.  Originally, skates were merely sharpened, flattened bone strapped to the bottom of the foot. Skaters did not actually skate on the ice, but rather glided on top of it. True skating emerged when a steel blade with sharpened edges was used. Skates now cut into the ice instead of gliding on top of it. Adding edges to ice skates was invented by the Dutch in the 13th or 14th century. These ice skates were made of steel, with sharpened edges on the bottom to aid movement. The construction of modern ice skates has stayed largely the same since then.

Emily Anne Hughes (born January 26, 1989) is an American figure skater. She is the 2007 U.S. National silver medalist and was a member of the 2006 Olympic team. She is a younger sister of Sarah Hughes, the 2002 Olympic champion.

Emily Hughes was born in Great Neck, New York. Her father, John Hughes, is a Canadian of Irish descent, and was the captain of the NCAA champion 1969–70 Cornell University ice hockey team. Her mother, Amy Pastarnack, is Jewish and is a breast cancer survivor. Hughes has supported a variety of causes for breast cancer research and awareness, including Skating for Life, a television special that she promoted on NBC's Today show.

Hughes has five siblings. One of her older sisters, Sarah, is the 2002 Olympic champion.

She graduated from Great Neck North High School in June 2007, and announced on April 26, 2007 that she would attend Harvard University starting in Fall 2007. After moving to Harvard, she switched from long-time coach Bonni Retzkin to train under Mark Mitchell and Peter Johansson at the Skating Club of Boston. Hughes has a concentration in sociology with a minor in government and graduated a member of the class of 2011. In 2002, she co-wrote a book in Random House's Young Dreamers series, I Am a Skater. On December 18, 2005, Hughes was the subject of a cover story in the Sunday New York Times Magazine.

Alexandra Pauline "Sasha" Cohen (born October 26, 1984) is a U.S. figure skater. She is the 2006 Olympic silver medalist, a three-time World Championship medalist, the 2003 Grand Prix Final Champion, and the 2006 U.S. Champion.

Cohen was born in Westwood, California, a neighborhood in Los Angeles. Her full name is Alexandra Pauline Cohen. Her nickname "Sasha" is a Russian diminutive of "Alexandra". As a university student, she has used the name Alex, rather than Sasha.

Her mother, Galina (née Feldman), is a Jewish immigrant from Ukraine and a former ballet dancer.

Her father, Roger Cohen, graduated from the University of California, Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law. Roger Cohen was formerly a law partner at Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison, and Of Counsel at Dorsey and Whitney. He is Founder and CEO of VerticalPoint Solutions, a company that simplifies and automates compliance for document intensive industries. VerticalPoint is based in Orange County, California.[1]

Sasha Cohen graduated from Futures High School in Mission Viejo, California in 2002. As of 2011, she was enrolled as an undergraduate student at Columbia University. Her sister, Natalia ("Natasha"), began college at Barnard College in August 2006.

Willow Camille Reign Smith (born October 31, 2000), often known simply as Willow, is an American actress and singer. She is the daughter of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, and the younger sister of Jaden Smith. Smith made her acting debut in 2007 in the film I Am Legend and later appeared in Kit Kittredge: An American Girl alongside Abigail Breslin. She received a Young Artist Award for her performance.

Apart from her acting she launched a music career in the fall of 2010 with the release of her singles "Whip My Hair", "21st Century Girl", and signing to her current mentor Jay-Z's record label Roc Nation. "Whip My Hair" peaked at #11 on the Billboard Hot 100. The video was nominated for Video of the Year at the BET Awards of 2011.

Smith is the daughter of musician-actor Will Smith and actress Jada Pinkett Smith. She has an older half-brother, Trey Smith, and an older brother, Jaden Smith; both are also child actors. Smith is African-American, and also has West Indian, Creole, and Portuguese-Jewish ancestry on her mother's side. Smith and her brothers are youth ambassadors for Project Zambia, which provides assistance for Zambian children orphaned by AIDS in conjunction with Hasbro.

Carolina Kostner (born 8 February 1987) is an Italian figure skater. She is the 2012 World champion and has three other World medals (2008, silver; 2011 and 2005, bronze). Kostner is also a four-time European champion (2007, 2008, 2010, 2012) and has three other European medals (2009 and 2011 silver, 2006 bronze), the 2011–12 Grand Prix Final champion, the 2010–11 Grand Prix Final silver medalist, the 2007–2008 Grand Prix Final and 2008–2009 Grand Prix Final bronze medalist, the 2003 World Junior bronze medalist, and a six-time Italian champion.

Carolina Kostner was born in Bolzano, Italy and lives in Urtijëi (Ortisei/St. Ulrich), Italy. She began skating at age 4. Her mother, Patrizia, was a nationally ranked figure skater in the 1970s. She was also a geometric arts teacher. Her father, Erwin, played ice hockey for the Italian national team at the World Championships and Olympic Games and presently coaches ice hockey teams. One of her grandfathers was the director of the Art Academy in her hometown. She has two brothers, one year older Martin and three years younger Simon, who plays ice hockey competitively in JYP-Akatemia in Jyväskylä, Finland. Kostner is the cousin and godchild of Isolde Kostner, a silver medalist in alpine skiing at the 2002 Winter Olympics.