There was considerably less fanfare when the first Olympic champions in a winter sport were crowned, before the Winter Games themselves even existed.

Ice skating was included at the 1908 London Olympics.

There were competitions in men’s and women’s singles, a pairs competition and also, for the only time, a competition in "special figures."

The sport had already become popular by the end of the 19th century.  

An International Skating Union had been established in 1892.

It was two years before Baron Pierre de Coubertin’s famous meeting at the Paris Sorbonne to revive the Olympics for the modern era.

That historic meeting took place in June 1894 and a month later the "Bulletin of the International Committee for the Olympic Games" was published.

This included a recommendation of the sports which "as much as possible should be included in the Olympic Games."

Rome had originally been awarded the 1908 Olympics, but in 1906 Mount Vesuvius erupted causing devastation.

Disaster relief meant that staging the Olympics in Italy would be an impossibility.

The fledgling British Olympic Association (BOA) took over responsibility for organising them.

The following year at the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Session in the Hague, the sporting programme for 1908 was finalised. 

Skating was included on the programme as one of the "winter sports."

In those days, the description also referred to such sports as football, rugby union and hockey. 

The organisation of the skating was put in the hands of the National Skating Association of Great Britain and competition was to be "held at one of the London rinks." 

Originally it was scheduled for the early part of the year but ultimately programmed for late October.

The venue was confirmed as the Princes Club.

This was opened "through the goodwill and assistance of the Duchess of Bedford."

In those days, Olympic regulations were very strict about the amateur status of the competitors.

Detailed rules and regulations were circulated for each sport.

"A skater is not recognised as an amateur if, since January 1 1893 he has practised in his own person any sporting bodily exercise as a means for gain," nor was he or she allowed to have been a teacher of skating.

The rules also barred anyone who had "sold or pledged prizes won in sporting competitions."

Skaters would even face exclusion if they had "knowingly and without protest started in an open skating competition against a competitor who is not an amateur."

Fewer than twenty skaters entered the competition, but they included the very top performers in the world.

Organisers described the field as "an excellent and representative entry."

They included Sweden’s dominant performer Ulrich Salchow who won all but one World Championship in the first decade of the twentieth century.

Many of the overseas competitors chose to complete their practice at the rink in Berlin.

Although the international skaters were allocated ten hours a day to train, the general public were also allowed in to use the rink. 

Competition began with the compulsory figures in the "ladies" competition to be followed by the men’s events.

The men’s competition had begun with "Gentleman’s Figures" on the afternoon of the first day and immediately Salchow went into the lead.

The following morning, the men were back on the rink for the "Special Figures."

This was a separate competition, held for the one and only time in 1908.

There were no ISU regulations for this event so the jury at the rink drew up regulations.

Each figure skater was to be marked "in accordance with its supposed difficulty and novelty" - a further mark "the manner in which it was skated."

It was the first gold medal to be decided.

The competition was won by Nikolai Kolomenkin of Russia, who performed under the "nom de skate" of Panin.

This was thought to be because it was not always considered quite the thing for a gentleman in Tsarist Russia to be competing in sport.

A century on, things had changed and his bust took pride of place at the skating arena for Sochi 2014.

The official report described Kolomenkin or Panin’s efforts "as far in advance of his opponents, both in the difficulty of his figures, and in the ease and accuracy of their execution."

The skill involved was all very well but the correspondent from The Times was less than impressed.

"The casual spectator is apt to find these tedious. The shades of difference which make them so absorbing to the learner escaping his uncritical eye," he wrote.

It seemed likely that the Russian might well have added a second medal in the men’s singles.

He was said to have felt unwell before the free programme and withdrew from the competition. This left the way clear for Salchow.

Sweden had a clean sweep.

The following year Salchow executed the jump which made sure his name remains in skating parlance to this very day.

In the women’s competition Florence "Madge" Syers went into the lead immediately. She received higher marks from all five judges.

The Field Magazine reported: "It was soon apparent that Mrs Syers, after a year’s retirement from competitions, is still in a class by herself." 

She was one of only 37 women who competed in the entire 1908 Olympics, but was equally impressive in the free skating and thus became the first female Olympic skating champion.

"Skating is an exercise particularly appropriate for women," Madge wrote. 

"Many Englishwomen have become very proficient, equal indeed to all but the very best of the other sex."

In previous years, before a women’s World Championship had been established, Madge competed against the men and more than held her own.

For all this, the Sporting Life newspaper suggested that skating "had not yet excited the great British public."

Unsurprisingly, the official report, edited by Theodore Cook, a leading member of the British Olympic Association, took a rather more positive line.

"The rink was filled to overflowing with an enthusiastic crowd of onlookers, who witnessed perhaps the most strenuous, delightful and varied display of figure skating that has ever taken place."

The other gold medal to be decided came in the pairs.

This was won by Anna Hubler and Heinrich Burger of Germany.

Phyllis Johnson and her husband James took silver and Madge returned with her husband Edgar to claim bronze.

Edgar had also been working hard as a member of the Organising Committee for the Games.

Madge suffered ill health in later years and died aged only 35 in 1917.

There was no skating at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics but it returned to the programme for the 1920 Antwerp Olympics.

An ice hockey competition was also included at those Games, but both were staged well before the other sports.

The following year, the proposal came to stage an "International Winter Sports Week under the high patronage of the IOC."

This took place in Chamonix in 1924 and was later renamed as the first Olympic Winter Games.