Story: Ice sports

Ice skating championships, 1949

The 1949 New Zealand Ice Skating Championships were held at Lake Tekapo. This film of the occasion shows thrills and spills in the men's 220-yard race, and a graceful figure skating pair.

Using this item

Archives New Zealand - Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga

Reference: Weekly Review 415. National Film Unit, 1949

Permission of Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga must be obtained before any re-use of this material.

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How to cite this page

Nancy Swarbrick, Ice sports – Ice skating, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/video/40950/ice-skating-championships-1949 (accessed 4 June 2026).

Story by Nancy Swarbrick, published 27 February 2013, updated 1 January 2016.

Comments

Mary-Anne Boyd
21 July 2023

We have the engraved gold medal our grandmother Irene Connolly McGrath Sara won for the half-mile Ice Skating Couple Race in the South Island in 1909 - happy to send photographs if of interest as we understand that ice skating was popular in the winter well ahead of the First World War.