Crystal Skate

Every sport has a defining element without which it cannot survive. Football has the ball, tennis has the racket and figure skating has the music. Yes, not the ice, not the skates, but the music because without it there'd be no figure attached to the skating. I've been meaning to talk about music for a while now, but never really got around it before. So now I am dedicating the next five posts to this wonderful invention that gave colour to the world and helped create our favourite sport. Patrick Chan performing his 2013/2014 free skate Photograph: Robert Cianflone / Getty Images Europe There is only one genre of music you can begin this discussion with; the father and mother of all melodies, the king and queen of grace, the god and goddess of sophistication: classical music. Classical music started it all. If today we have the likes of Rihanna, Coldplay, Adele and millions of other performing artists, it is because hundreds of years ago, people like the Italian name...

Coco Chanel once famously said that when a woman dresses shabbily, all everyone will remember is the dress; but if you dress impeccably, they will remember the woman. Her words can also be applied to figure skating because the routines that stand out, that are remembered for their quality, are the ones that benefit from fabulous costumes, especially in the exhibition. This routine was initially their free skate in 2012/2013 Photographs: Dave Sandford / Getty Images N America Exhibition programmes can blend into one another if not handled with care. Most of them are set to popular songs, the type that you hear on the radio, love for a few weeks, then quickly forget about when a trendier song hits the radio stations. That is not to say that the routines set to them are not beautiful, but just as the songs themselves, they can be forgettable. To avoid this, some skaters go to great lengths to create programmes so unique, they can never be confused with someone else's. And with ...