Death spiral (figure skating)

The death spiral is a figure skating term used to describe a spin involving two partners in the discipline of pair skating, in which one partner lowers the other partner while the partner getting close to the ice arches backward on one foot. It was created by German professional skater Charlotte Oelschlägel and her husband Curt Newmann in the 1920s. Suzanne Morrow and Wallace Diestelmeyer from Canada were the first pair team to perform the death spiral one-handed (the man holding the woman in position with one hand), at the 1948 Olympic Games. In the 1960s, Soviet pair team Liudmila Belousova and Oleg Protopopov created three death spirals: "the backward-inside, forward-inside and forward-outside death spirals, which they originally named the Cosmic Spiral, Life Spiral and Love Spiral, respectively". The International Skating Union (ISU), the governing body that oversees figure skating, allows for variations of arm holds and pivot positions. Senior pair skating teams must perform different types of death spirals in their short programs and free skating programs.