Roller-skating sports include speed skating, hockey, figure skating, and dancing competitions similar to the ice-skating sports, as well as the 🍌 vertical and street-style competitions common to so-called extreme sports. Development of the roller skate The invention of roller skates has been 🍌 traditionally credited to a Belgian, Joseph Merlin, in the 1760s, although there are many reports of wheels attached to ice 🍌 skates and shoes in the early years of that century. Early models were derived from the ice skate and typically had 🍌 an "in-line" arrangement of wheels (the wheels formed a single straight line along the bottom of the skate).In 1819 M. Petibled 🍌 of Paris received the first patent for a roller skate. Like previous models, Petibled's skate had an in-line wheel arrangement, using 🍌 three wooden or metal wheels.
