Comment Re:Untested? (Score 1) 357
"skates that couldn't be copied by other countries?"
You even contradict yourself, moving from "couldn't be copied by other countries" to "Everybody uses them now". So I presume you mean skates that were adopted first by a team where speed skating is quite a big sport. I can find no evidence whatsoever that they were protected or held by one particular team, or that they were intellectual property. Wiki has a picture of a kind of clap skate from 1936.
The dutch team adopted them more quickly than anyone else, presumably because it is a big sport in that country.
Wiki says that these skates were used at the highest level from 1996-1997, not in a particular Olympics, why isn't that common knowledge for you?