Medal in sight for Scottish ice dancer after first round of competition between world's six best teams

Scottish ice dancer Lewis Gibson and partner Lilah Fear are lying in the bronze medal position after the first round of the final of the Grand Prix of Figure Skating.

The pair scored 82.31, just over a point behind Italy’s Charlene Guignard and Marco Fabbri, who are lying in second place before Saturday’s free dance.

Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the US scored a season’s best of 87.73 to take the first place after the rhythm dance.

Fear and Gibson were the top scoring couple going into the competition, having won both of their Grand Prix series assignments. No other ice dance teams have won both their Grand Prix assignments this year, in a tumultuous season for the discipline so far, which saw falls from top level teams including Guignard and Fabbri and Chock and Bates in earlier rounds.

Gibson said: “It was fun and it was definitely cool being in the second group [top three skaters] for the first time in the Grand Prix final and skating last, we had the time to absorb it all, so we were a little more prepared.”

Fear said: “We had a blast out there, our goal today was to have fun and not to put pressure on ourselves and we set our standards for ourselves, but our goal was also to go in and entertain and we accomplished that.”

The duo travelled to France less than a week after competing in the British Championships, where they took their seventh ice dance title.

Lewis Gibson and Lilah Fear in training at the Grand Prix Final in Grenoble on Friday. | Jane Bradley

Fear said: “We are used to back to back competitions - we did it earlier in the season with Skate America and Bratislava, so we love the momentum we get from that.”

Speaking to The Scotsman before their skate, the pair said they were relaxed about the final.

“For us, it is a bonus competition. The stress is in qualifying for the final and we’ve done that, so we just want to go out there and enjoy it and give it our all,” Fear said.

Piper Gillies and Paul Poirier of Canada, who won the competition two years ago, finished in last place in the event after Poirier suffered a fall.

No other British skaters qualified for the finals of the Grand Prix competitions, which sees only the top six in each discipline take part.