Pavel Roman Memorial

The Pavel Roman Memorial is named in honor of Pavel Roman, who competed internationally in pair skating and ice dance for Czechoslovakia. With his sister Eva Romanová, they were four-time world champions (1962–65),^[1] two-time European champions (1964–65),^[2] and seven-time Czechoslovak national championships (1959–65), all in ice dance.^[3] After retiring from competitive skating, Romanová and Roman toured with Holiday on Ice.^[1] Roman died in a motorcycle crash in 1972.^[1]

The Pavel Roman Memorial was first held in 1992 in Olomouc, in what was then Czechoslovakia. It was a continuation of the November 17th Cup (Czech: Poháru 17. listopadu), an earlier figure skating competition which dated back to 1968.^[4] It had been thirty years since Romanová and Roman won their first World Championship title, and twenty years since Roman's death. Barbara Fusar-Poli and Alberto Reani of Italy won the competition.^[5]

The dissolution of Czechoslovakia occurred on 31 December 1992, leading to the creation of two independent nations: the Czech Republic and Slovakia.^[6] The 1993 Pavel Roman Memorial was the first to be held in the newly independent Czech Republic; Bérangère Nau and Luc Monéger of France were the winners.^[7]

No competition was held from 1997 to 1999 after the Zimní stadion Olomouc was damaged during the 1997 Central European flood.^[4] The competition was also cancelled in 2017 and 2020,^[8] the latter of which was due to the COVID-19 pandemic.^[9]

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