OVERVIEW
In artistic skating, athletes glide on roller skates and perform acrobatics, trace figures and do technical exercises.
HISTORY
Roller skating emerged in the seventeenth century in the Netherlands, when a man who was upset he could not ice skate because the canals had thawed, decided to add wooden wheels to his shoes and start skating on the ground. The first patented roller skates were made in 1760 by John Merlin and had metal wheels.