How does iceskating work?
Calderon &amp; Mohazzabi give an excellent summation of the various theories proposed through the years to explain why ice is so slippery in their 2018 paper &quot;Premelting, Pressure Melting, and Regelation of ice revisited&quot; in the Journal of Applied Mathematics  and Physics.
They  offer both theoretical and experimental evidence that neither pressure melting nor friction melting explain the phenomenon and conclude from atomic force microscopy, among other evidence, that there is a pre-melting Quasi-​Liquid surface layer with special properties that make ice skating possible.
References

Calderon, C. and Mohazzabi, P. (2018) Premelting, Pressure Melting, and Regelation of Ice Revisited. Journal of Applied Mathematics and Physics, 6, 2181-2191. doi: [10.4236/jamp.2018.611183.][1]

Preview/read online at :  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328766489_Premelting_Pressure_Melting_and_Regelation_of_Ice_Revisited