1898 World Figure Skating Championships

The 1898 World Figure Skating Championship were held February 15 in London, United Kingdom

Competition

Four skaters competed; a fifth was entered and arrived at the competition, but he withdrew at the last moment; the Allgemeine Sport-Zeitung reported that he could not compete due to stage fright. The competition was well-attended, and the audience included Edward VII.

The competition was won by Henning Grenander of Sweden, who rose from third to first after a free skate praised for its originality; this was the only time he entered the World Championships. He and the second- and third-place contestants, Gustav Hügel and Gilbert Fuchs, were closely matched. The fourth-place finisher, Holt, struggled with the compulsory figures and did not attempt the ones done by skating backwards.

Controversy

Hügel and Fuchs, who had won the championship in 1897 and 1896 respectively, filed a protest alleging that Grenander violated the rules with respect to size of the figures and their axes, and that the judges had overscored him with regard to difficult and variety in his free skating, having been biased by the enthusiastic reaction of the audience. The judges and the referee met and agreed on the following:

Grenander's scores in the compulsory figures already reflected his mistakes

The individuality of the skaters and judges had to be taken into account in the free skate

The judges' scores must be considered to be final "in the absence of any truly extraordinary circumstances"

The individual score sheets of all the judges would be published

The protest would be rejected

The protest was criticized as being unsportsmanlike in the Allgemeine Sport-Zeitung, and the Vienna Ice Skating Association wrote a letter to the Austrian federation noting their disapproval of it. Hügel reacted with a letter of his own, in which he criticized the Vienna Ice Skating Association, Swedish judge von Rosen, and allowing Holt to compete at the Championships despite his low skill level. He noted that he and Fuchs had not previously protested when they lost at competitions, then evoked the controversy at the 1893 European Championships, another competition where a protest had been lodged against Grenander.