SPEEDING across the ice with grace and style, skaters have celebrated 30 years of the city’s winter ice rink.

Joined by Mark Hanretty and Maria Filippov, stars from ITV’s Dancing on Ice, 100 local skaters took to the ice for the annual Christmas Ice Show.

Hundreds of people turned out over the weekend for performances marking the 30th anniversary of Oxford’s Ice Rink.

Stephen Lee, marketing executive at Fusion, a sports and leisure service that manages the Ice Rink in partnership with Oxford City Council, said: “It was great, we had almost 2,000 people attend and obviously we have had a great response from the public, lots of kids and the local skaters.

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“It was the best crowd we have had for the last five years.”

To represent the passage of time over the past three decades, the show was based around calendar events throughout the year, such as St Patrick’s Day, May Day and the celebrations leading up to Christmas.

Other professionals from around the world, including 2010 British Champion David Richardson, 1999 British Ladies’ Champion Tamsin Sear-Watkins and professional show skater in Holiday on Ice Charlotte Davis, joined members from Oxford Figure Ice Skating Club, Oxford Ice Dance Club, Oxford Development Squad and Oxford Ice Rink ‘learn to skate’ course members.

Also in the show was Marvin the Penguin, the ice rink mascot, who donned his skates to go speeding around the rink.

General manager of the rink John Harris said: “The coaches, Ice Rink team and famnilies have put a lot of work into making this show one of the premier Christmas events in the city.”

The show was produced by Oxford Ice Rink and local skate coaches Jane de Lange, Sue Hands and Alison Morrell, with a team assisting with production, costumes and choreography.

The original campaign to raise funds to build the ice rink was launched in 1979, with an advert asking for support of an Oxford ice rink in The Oxford Times.

The £2m Oxpens ice rink opened in 1984, and 450,000 people passed through the doors in the first year.



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