The men's singles was one of four events in figure skating at the 1908 Summer Olympics. Each nation could enter up to 3 skaters.Official Report, p. 39. Sweden's Ulrich Salchow, who had won several World Figure Skating Championships, easily won the gold medal after his main rival, Russia's Nikolai Panin, withdrew either in protest over what he considered unfair judging or due to illness.Official Report, p. 293.
Competition format
Each skater had to complete a set of compulsory figures, with a possible score from those figures of 264. There were 7 figures, each of which had to completed in both directions (resulting in a total of 14 figures). Each figure was repeated three times. Marks were given for each figure from 0 to 6 (in half-point increments), then multiplied by a difficulty factor for that figure.
Each skater also performed a free skate of five minutes, with a score of up to 168. Scores from 0 to 6 were given for each of (a) content (difficulty and variety) and (b) performance. The total was multiplied by 14.
The maximum total possible score was therefore 432. Each judge would then arrange the skaters in order of total score by that judge; these ordinal rankings were used to provide final placement for the skaters, using a "majority rule"—if a majority of the judges ranked a pair first, the pair won. If there was no majority, the total ordinals controlled. Ties were broken by total points.Official Report, pp. 558–65.
Results
Three different skaters received a first-place rank from at least one judge: Thorén had one, Johansson had one, and Salchow had three. Because Salchow had a majority, he took the gold medal.
Johansson had a majority of the judges ranking him second or better, and took silver; similarly, Thorén had the majority of the third-place ranks and earned bronze. Greig took fourth, with no judge ranking him worse than that.
No majority was had for fifth-place, however, as the judges were split 2 for March, 2 for Brokaw, and 1 for Torromé. March had the fewest total ordinals (at 29, to Brokaw's 30 and Torromé's 31), so placed fifth.
Rank Skaters Nation Points (Rank) Average score Total ordinals Ulrich Salchow 357(1) 400(1) 393(2) 351(2) 385.5(1) 377.3 1 2 7 Richard Johansson 336(2) 396.5(2) 381(3) 353.5(1) 359(2) 365.2 4 1 10 Per Thorén 318(4) 387.5(3) 397(1) 341(3) 343.5(3) 357.4 6 3 14 4 J. Keiller Greig 330(3) 327.5(4) 273(4) 313(4) 311(4) 310.9 5 4 19 5 Albert March 224(5) 257.5(5) 208.5(7) 228(6) 242(6) 232.0 6 7 29 6 Irving Brokaw 207(6) 246.5(7) 240(5) 266(5) 241.5(7) 240,2 8 5 30 7 Horatio Torromé 197.5(7) 247(6) 231(6) 220.5(7) 248.5(5) 228.9 7 6 31 – Nikolai Panin Did not finish 2 – – – Henry Yglesias Did not finish 9 – –
Referee: Herbert G. Fowler
Judges: Henning Grenander Edvard Hörle Gustav Hügel Georg Sanders Hermann Wendt
References
Sources
De Wael, Herman. Herman's Full Olympians: "Figure skating 1908". Accessed 2 May 2006. Available electronically at .