Scottish skaters bid to take sport past 1980s legacy and speak on impact of recent scandals

As Scottish skater Lewis Gibson and his partner Lilah Fear took to the ice in Grenoble for their rhythm dance on Friday, the already enthusiastic crowd cranked up their level of excitement even further.

The duo were last to skate in the first round of this season’s prestigious Grand Prix of Figure Skating final, entering the event as the highest scoring ice dance pair in the series of qualifying events.

Only the top six ice dance couples in the world compete in the annual event. However the pair known as the “Disco Brits” for their catchy, upbeat numbers, are fan favourites.

Their Grand Prix series success comes off the back of a string of accolades for the British couple, who recently claimed their seventh national title, tying with ice dance legends Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean and Edinburgh brother and sister team Sinead and John Kerr, who hung up their boots in 2011.

Lewis Gibson and Lilah Fear at the Grand Prix of Figure Skating final in Grenoble. | Jane Bradley

Yet while the sport of ice dance has developed since the Torvill and Dean era - with moves attempted by today’s champions unheard of 30 or 40 years ago - in Britain, at least, public perception of the sport often remains firmly rooted in the 1980s.

Gibson and Fear are grateful for the legacy left by Torvill and Dean - who are set to perform their final professional tour this year at the age of 67 and 66 respectively, finishing the UK leg of their tour in Glasgow in May - but are keen to propel today’s athletes into the spotlight.

“Torvill and Dean have laid the foundation for the legacy and that's never going to go away, nor do we want it to,” says Fear, adding that the British public’s attachment to the 1984 Winter Olympic gold medal winning routine Bolero is “special and to be preserved”.

“It's something that the whole nation is so proud of and in awe of, and so many memories are attached. For us, what it showed was what was possible in the sport and in Great Britain. Then, with that open door, we've been very bold and determined to go through it and to make the most of our careers and see what’s possible for us, and then hopefully, in our own way, with our own legacy, inspire younger skaters.”

Gibson, from Prestwick, took up skating at the comparatively late age of 11, inspired by watching ITV reality show Dancing on Ice. Fear hopes the pair can inspire other youngsters to do the same. “If we can have any impact in that way, to get kids into the sport, that is all that we want, it's a huge mission for us,” she says.

Like Torvill and Dean, who were ground-breaking in their own era, Gibson and Fear have themselves come up with innovative moves which have since been adopted by the International Skating Union (ISU), including a stationary to rotational lift. They also started a trend a couple of seasons ago to incorporate using the boards at the side of the rink into their routine, something Gibson describes as “a full-on pandemic of board touching” among high level ice dancers.

“There's a lot of comparisons,” Gibson says. “They did so many unique things in their time and the Bolero itself is a testament to that. But there's a lot of things that have been firsts for us as well.

“We are doing the sport the way we want to do it. They did the same thing in their time and didn't try to conform and tried to push the limits. It's been such a long time where there's been this chance since Torvill and Dean, and we want to push the sport out there in the UK.”

UK Sport last year increased its support funding to £1.9 million for skating, partly due to the success of Gibson and Fear, as well as other up-and-coming skaters.

Fear welcomes the increased grassroots support for young skaters. “It’s not helpful to just support people once they're successful,” she says. “Of course, there can always be more.”

Gibson adds: “We're a first hand example of that. We had to work very hard in order to get a certain level before funding was possible. But it also made more funding possible for our sport, so hopefully UK Sport will invest more into the sport alongside us and anyone else who can get up there as well.”

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

Dundee-based British pairs champions Anastasia Vaipan-Law and Luke Digby recently placed sixth in their two assigned grand prix series competitions. Meanwhile, fellow ice dancers Phebe Bekker and James Hernandez are climbing the international ranks, this weekend winning gold at the Golden Spin competition in Zagreb.

“It’s exciting, because it shows there’s not just one random team, there’s potential for a lot of depth in British skating, it’s just a case of fostering it.” says Fear.

Figure skating has witnessed its own challenges in the past year, facing a series of allegations of sexual assault scandals, which has seen a number of skaters disappear from the line-up of this season’s competitions - banned or suspended by sporting authorities.

Nikolaj Sorensen, who, with his partner Laurence Fournier-Beaudry, trained alongside Gibson and Fear at the prestigious Ice Academy of Montreal, where many of the world’s leading ice dance teams are coached, was last year accused of the sexual assault of another skater in 2012 and was subsequently handed a ban of at least six years for "sexual maltreatment" as a result of the findings of the Office of the Sport Integrity Commissioner. .

Meanwhile, Ivan Desyatov, an up-and-coming Team USA skater with his partner Isabella Flores, has also been given a temporary suspension from the US Center for Safe Sport after a French ice dancer accused him of sexually assaulting her in her hotel room at a competition.

Fear says: “People are speaking up and sharing their stories and with that comes an awareness which is the first step before change can take place. But the awareness needs to be followed by action, otherwise it just passes and no change gets made and nobody feels there's that support or reform.”

Just before the 2022 Winter Olympic Games, Gibson, who is married to a man, publicly came out, saying he had been hesitant to do so earlier amid a fear of backlash in a sport which is judged. He believes athletes in many sports have often felt a fear of speaking out about many aspects of discrimination.

“Take any sport, there's always these stories that come out at some point in time,” he says. “It's inevitable that it happens in this day and age. The sports which may seem so clean and nothing has happened yet, I think it's just a matter of time that a story will appear.

“[Speaking out] brings an awareness and an allowance to feel like it’s safer and to speak up and be heard.”