10 Common Figure Skating Words and Terms to Know This Winter Olympics

Figure skating has been an official Olympic event for well over a century, having made its debut appearance (oddly enough, at a Summer Olympics, not at a Winter Olympics) way back in London in 1908. The sport remained on the Olympic roster until the very first Winter Olympic Games were held in Chamonix, France, in 1924, and it has been a fixture of every Winter Games since. 

Like all sports, Olympic or otherwise, figure skating has more than its fair share of jargon, slang, and technical shorthand. So if you’re planning on watching this year’s Winter Olympics in Italy, here’s a quick primer in 20 figure skating terms worth knowing. 

1. CARROT 
2. DEATH SPIRAL 
3. DOUBLE CARROT 
4. FLUTZ 
5. HYDROBLADING 
6. INA BAUER 
7. SPREAD EAGLE 
8. TWIZZLE 
9. WAXEL 
10. ZAYAK 

CARROT 

In figure skating scoring, a jump that is classed as “underrotated,” or designated “UR,” ends with the skater touching back down on the ice more than a quarter-turn short of a full rotation, but less than a half-turn short. When the scores are notated, these underrotated jumps are sometimes shorthanded to a single chevron or angle bracket, < , hence their nickname, a carrot. 

DEATH SPIRAL 

Despite the ominous name, this is one of the most graceful and dramatic moves in paired figure skating, and a mainstay of Olympic competitions. The male partner pivots on the toe pick of one skate, while the female partner holds his hand at length, circling around him in an arched position with her head almost touching the ice. Understandably, it’s a move that requires considerable strength, agility, and coordination to perfect.  

DOUBLE CARROT 

If an underrotated jump involves the skater landing between a quarter and a half turn short of a full 360º rotation, then a double carrot sees the skater land half a turn or more short. In technical parlance, such errors are properly known as downgrades—but just as an underrotated jump is designated with an angle bracket, <, and nicknamed a carrot, a downgrade is designated with two angle brackets, <<, and known as a double carrot. 

FLUTZ 

You might have heard skating commentators talk of Lutz jumps before, but a flutz? Well, a classic Lutz jump—named after Austrian skater Alois Lutz, who first landed it in a competition in 1913—involves the skater using the toe pick of one skate to jump off the back outside edge of the other skate, and turning in the opposite direction to land on the outside edge of the foot opposite the launch foot.

It’s widely considered one of the toughest jumps in all figure skating, and for that reason is sometimes imperfectly carried out—resulting in a “flutz.” A portmanteau of “flip” and “Lutz,” a flutz jump involves the skater leaping from the inside rather than the outside edge of the skate. 

HYDROBLADING 

You might not know the word, but you’ll likely know what it looks like. Hydroblading is the impressive, low-lying gliding movement in figure skating, in which the skater moves with their body held low, almost against the ice; in some variations, known as one- or two-handed hydroblade, the skater holds themselves low enough to let one or both hands touch the ice as they move.  

INA BAUER 

Ina Bauer was a German figure skater and dancer who became one of the sport’s biggest stars in the late '50s and '60s. She was especially known for an especially graceful skating move that now bears her name—an Ina Bauer involves the skater skating on parallel blades, akin to the fourth position in ballet, in which the dancer’s feet are held parallel, toes facing in opposite directions from one another. 

SPREAD EAGLE 

As its name suggests, a spread eagle is any movement on the ice in which the skater moves with their feet and legs apart, their toes turned outward facing in opposite directions, and their heels facing one another. Spread eagles can be performed on either the inside or outside of the blades. 

TWIZZLE 

It might have a throwaway name, but the twizzle is one of the most popular and identifiable moves in figure skating. A feature of both solo and paired skating, essentially, twizzles are a series of rapid and smoothly continuous single-leg rotations, made while moving along the ice. 

WAXEL 

Just like a flutz, a waxel is another imperfectly performed standard jump in figure skating. A standard axel jump (named after its 19th century Norwegian inventor Axel Paulson) sees the skater jumping off from the forward outside edge of their skate blade, rotating one-and-a-half times in the air (or two-and-a-half for a double axel, three-and-a-half for a triple, and so on) before landing back down on the outside edge of the foot opposite to the one they launched from, facing the opposite direction.

Get that move wrong, though, and you’ll have made a waxel, not an axel. 

ZAYAK 

Elaine Zayak was one of American skating’s most promising names in the early 1980s, eventually working her way up to take gold in the ladies’ singles competition at the 1982 World Championships in Copenhagen. Although she was later plagued by a string of injuries and stumbling performances that saw her miss out on an Olympic title, Zayak was nonetheless an immensely talented skater who became known for her enthusiastic use of triple jumps, often landing several of them in a single routine.

This approach didn’t go down well with everyone, however, and in the same year that Zayak won skating gold, the sport’s governing body, the International Skating Union, implemented what became known as the Zayak Rule that limited each routine to no more than two triple jumps. Not only has Zayak ended up giving her name to this rule, but her name has slipped into use in figure skating jargon to refer to either a skater or a performance that overuses the same move.