Clap skate
The speed skate with a hinged blade that snaps back against the boot and gave faster skating.
With the clap skate the blade is fixed to the front of the boot and lifts away from the heel at the push-off. The skater can push for longer and gets more power in every stroke.
Researchers at the university in Amsterdam, led by Gerrit Jan van Ingen Schenau, had thought out the idea. The skate broke through at the Olympic Games in Nagano in 1998, where records fell at every distance.
Materials: Steel blade, a hinge and spring, carbon fibre or leather boot
Manufacture: Developed in the Netherlands in the 1980s and 1990s and widely introduced in 1996.
The hinge under the front of the boot.
The long blade that lifts away from the heel.
The spring that snaps the blade back.