There are top international rinks in a number of other countries, including Canada, the United States, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, Kazakhstan, China, Belarus and Poland.

Events are usually held with a knockout format, with the best two in heats of four or five qualifying for the final race, where medals are awarded.

Inline skating can also be held on closed road courses between 400 and 1,000 metres, as well as open-road competitions where starting and finishing lines do not coincide.

The origins of speed skating date back over a millennium in the North of Europe, especially Scandinavia and the Netherlands, where the natives added bones to their shoes and used them to travel on frozen rivers, canals and lakes.

For example, winters in the Netherlands have never been stable and cold enough to make ice skating a regular way of travelling or a mode of transport.

[5] While in the Netherlands, people began touring the waterways connecting the 11 cities of Friesland, a challenge which eventually led to the Elfstedentocht.

Norwegian clubs hosted competitions from 1863, with races in Christiania drawing five-digit crowds.

[8] In 1884, the Norwegian Axel Paulsen was named Amateur Champion Skater of the World after winning competitions in the United States.

The latter ones improved rapidly since their adoption as standard distances by the ISU, with Jaap Eden lowering the world 5000-metre record by half a minute during the Hamar European Championships in 1894.

[11][12] The Elfstedentocht was organized as a competition in 1909 and has been held at irregular intervals, whenever the ice on the course is deemed good enough.

According to the NRC Handelsblad journalist Jaap Bloembergen, the country "takes a carnival look" during international skating championships.

Charles Jewtraw from Lake Placid, New York, won the first Olympic gold medal, though several Norwegians in attendance claimed Oskar Olsen had clocked a better time.

The ISU approved the suggestion that the speed skating at the 1932 Winter Olympics should be held as pack-style races, and Americans won all four gold medals.

Canada won five medals, all silver and bronze, while defending World Champion Clas Thunberg stayed at home, protesting against this form of racing.

At the World Championships held immediately after the games, without the American champions, Norwegian racers won all four distances and occupied the three top spots in the allround standings.

Norwegians, Swedes, Finns, and Japanese skating leaders protested to the USOC, condemning the manner of competition and expressing the wish that mass-start races were never to be held again at the Olympics.

[14] After a while, national teams took over development of bodysuits, which are also used in short track skating, though without headcover attached to the suit—short trackers wear helmets instead, as falls are more common in mass-start races.

After the 1972 season, European long track skaters founded a professional league, International Speedskating League, which included Ard Schenk, three-time Olympic gold medallist in 1972, as well as five Norwegians, four other Dutchmen, three Swedes, and a few other skaters.

Jonny Nilsson, 1963 world champion and Olympic gold medallist, was the driving force behind the league, which folded in 1974 for economic reasons, and the ISU also excluded tracks hosting professional races from future international championships.

[15] The ISU later organised its own World Cup circuit with monetary prizes, and full-time professional teams developed in the Netherlands during the 1990s, which led them to a dominance on the men's side only challenged by Japanese 500 m racers and American inline skaters who changed to long tracks to win Olympic gold.

[17] Later, roller derby leagues appeared, a professional contact sport that originally was a form of racing.

Short track speed skating had little following in the long track speed skating countries of Europe, such as Norway, the Netherlands and the former Soviet Union, with none of these nations having won official medals (though the Netherlands won two gold medals when the sport was a demonstration event in 1988).

The Norwegian publication Sportsboken spent ten pages detailing the long track speed skating events at the Albertville Games in 1993, but short track was not mentioned by word, though the results pages appeared in that section.

Finally, the referee waits for a random duration between 1 and 1.5 seconds, and then fires the starting shot.

[22] Some argue that this inherent timing variability could disadvantage athletes that start after longer pauses, due to the alerting effect.

Both teams remain in the inner lane for the duration of the race; they start on opposite sides of the rink.

In the Olympic format, a team that overtakes the other has automatically won the race and the remaining distance is not skated.

Short track blades are fixed to the boot in at the heel and immediately behind the ball of the foot.

The heel of the boot detaches from the blade on every stroke, through a spring mechanism located at the front connector.

[26] Short track All short track skaters must have speed skates, a spandex skin suit, protective helmet, specific cut proof skating gloves, knee pads and shin pads (in suit), neck guard (bib style) and ankle protection.