250px|thumb|Two clap skates
thumb|Hinge of a clap skate
thumb|Regular skate and clap skate compared
thumb|An early clap skate in 1936
The clap skate (also called clapper skates, clapskates, slap skates, slapskates, from Dutch ) is a type of ice skate used in speed skating. Unlike in traditional skates where the blade is rigidly fixed to the boot, clap skates have the blade attached to the boot by a hinge at the front. This allows the blade to remain in contact with the ice longer, as the ankle can now be extended toward the end of the stroke, as well as for more natural movement, thereby distributing the energy of the leg more effectively and efficiently.
Clap skates were developed at the Faculty of Human Movement Sciences of the Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam, led by Gerrit Jan van Ingen Schenau, although the idea of a clap skate is much older; designs dating from around 1900 are known.
The clap skate was used first in the 1984/1985 skating season. It was, however, not until the late 1990s that the idea was taken seriously. In the 1996/1997 season, the Dutch women's team started using the skates with great success. The rest of the skating world soon followed suit, causing a torrent of world records to be broken in the following seasons, including the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan.
History
The idea of a hinging skate was described and patented in 1894 by Karl Hannes, from Raitenhaslach, Burghausen. It was re-invented by Gerrit Jan van Ingen Schenau, who started work on a hinged speed skate in 1979, created his first prototype in 1980
In the 1996–1997 season, the use of the clap skate caught on at the highest level, and in 1997 Tonny de Jong was the first European all round champion using the clap skate, leaving Gunda Niemann, the defending world champion, in second place. Niemann remarked that the skate was illegal, and should be outlawed. showed that the speed gain from using the clap skate does not originate in using the calf muscle to stretch the ankle, as was assumed in the creation of the clap skate, but in the fact that the point of rotation is moved from the tip of the skate to the hinge, facilitating the transfer of power to the ice.