Could Scottish ice dancers Lewis Gibson and Lilah Fear win gold this year in open post-Olympics field?

For Scottish figure skater Lewis Gibson and his partner Lilah Fear, this weekend is crucial.

The second Grand Prix of this year - Skate Canada - is due to kick off on Saturday and the event will see Gibson and Fear take to international ice in a major competition for the first time this season.

The pair, who have pledged to continue skating together through the next Winter Olympic cycle, will be hoping a string of post-Olympic retirements could pave the way for more medal success.

Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson failed to live up to expectations in Milan (Fabrizio Carabelli/PA)

Gibson and Fear are the only British skaters to take part in the prestigious Grand Prix series this year. No skaters in the women’s, men’s or pairs disciplines from the UK have been assigned a place following the retirement of Dundee pairs skaters Anastasia Vaipan Law and Luke Digby after the Olympics. Another British ice dance team, Phebe Bekker and James Hernandez, were due to compete in Skate America, however have withdrawn due to injury.

Top tier skaters are assigned up to two Grand Prix competitions a season, with the top performing athletes taking part in the Grand Prix final at the end of the year.

Who are the top contenders in ice dance this season?

Last year’s Winter Olympic season heralded a major shake up in the ice dance category when a former Olympic gold medallist, Guillaume Cizeron, formed a new partnership with Laurence Fournier Beaudry and scooped another Olympic gold medal.

The pair are likely to be in contention for gold medals in all major competitions, including the Grand Prix Final, the European Figure Skating Championships and the World Figure Skating Championships.

If Gibson and Fear perform at their full potential, they will also be vying for a podium place at major competitions.

Other top tier couples from previous seasons, including Madison Chock and Evan Bates from the US, who won the silver Olympic medal, Italians Charlene Guignard and Marco Fabbri and Piper Gillies and Paul Poirier from Canada, have all retired or are taking a break in the post-Olympic cycle. Allison Reid and Saulius Ambrulevicius from Lithuania have also said they are taking at least the Grand Prix season off.

In theory, this should open up the field for more medals for the British pair. Gibson, from Prestwick and Fear in 2025 won the first World Figure Skating Championships medal for Britain in more than 40 years, scooping bronze. They are eight times British champions and have won four European medals, two of them silver.

However, they finished seventh at the Olympics last season after a major error, while the World Figure Skating Championships was also a disappointment after a point deducted for a lift which judges claimed to be illegal cost them a place on the podium. Federation British Ice Skating attempted to challenge the decision.

Contenders for this season’s podiums will be wide ranging this season, including Emilia Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik from the US, who finished in fifth place at the Olympics, as well as UK-born Olivia Smart and her partner Tim Dieck who skate for Spain. Czech siblings Natalie Taschlerova and Filip Taschler will also be hoping for a breakout season, while Diana Davis and Gleb Smolkin from Georgia could also be in contention, alongside Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko from the US.

Gibson and Fear are yet to perform internationally this season. The first Grand Prix event, Grand Prix de France, was won by Fournier Beaudry and Cizeron, by a wide margin, with Davis and Smolkin coming second.

The British pair, however, performed at Sheffield’s Bolero Cup, a new ice dance event set up by British Ice Skating last year, in September, showcasing their new routines - a Latin themed rhythm dance to the Gipsy Kings and Moulin Rouge themed for the free dance - for the first time. While they won the competition by 25 points, their scores were significantly lower than last season, at 190.20, compared to their season’s best of 210.24 at last year’s Grand Prix de France.

Who are the current Olympic champions and why are they so controversial?

French skater Guillaume Cizeron previously won Olympic gold with his former partner and compatriot, Gabriella Papadakis. The pair, who skated together since childhood when they were matched by Papadakis’ mother (also a coach), were unbeatable, winning two Olympic medals and five world championship titles. In 2022, ten months after winning gold at the Beijing Winter Olympics, they announced they were going to take a break from competition. However, they formally ended their partnership two years later.

Around the same time as the French couple’s formal split, Canadian ice dancer Laurence Fournier Beaudry’s Danish-born ice dance partner - and long term romantic partner - Nikolaj Sorensen was accused of sexual assault against American skater Ashley Foy at a party some years earlier. The pair, who were ranked in the top ten in the world, withdrew from planned competitions amid the allegations, which he denied. Sorensen was subsequently handed a six-year suspension from the sport by Skate Canada and the Office of the Sport Integrity Commissioner (OSIC) for "sexual maltreatment". The suspension was overturned by the Sport Dispute Resolution Centre of Canada on jurisdictional grounds, as he was not a Canadian citizen or competing for Canada at the time of the alleged incident. However, the case is still in dispute. On August 7, Skate Canada placed Sorensen under “interim suspension”, pending a decision.

Fournier Beaudry and Cizeron have been criticised for their continuing support of Sorensen. The Danish skater, who is still in a relationship with Fournier Beaudry, regularly attends ice dance competitions to watch her, having been spotted in the audience at last week’s French Grand Prix.

Meanwhile, Cizeron’s former partner Papadakis published a memoir, in which she accused her former partner of being controlling. Cizeron has called this a "smear campaign" and "false information".

The duo - alongside Fear and Gibson - appeared in a recent Olympics.com documentary about the Olympic ice dance season, where Cizeron said he had wanted “something good” to come out of Sorensen and Fournier Beaudry not being able to skate together as a result of the sexual assault claims.