determined by the climate. Chelyabinsk was skating capital despite the fact that there were no covered skating rinks and skaters had to train, compete and set their records in the open air. Mass involvement of people was perhaps the best achievement of the South Ural sports movement in 1960-1980s. It was popularly called «family is the cell of sports». There were always ways to call families for competitions. Before the Olympic games in Innsbruck in 1976 «Club 1500» was organised and to join the club one had to ski 1500 km, which was the distance from Moscow to Innsbruck.