What do you get British skating royalty as a retirement gift when they have been ice dancing together for 50 years? A successor would be nice.
Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean, who won Olympic gold in 1984 and bronze in 1994, never thought they would be doing a farewell tour in 2025 still waiting for Great Britain to win another global figure skating medal.
They are hoping the wait may be nearly over with the emergence of Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson, who Torvill says have “taken ice dancing in Great Britain to another level”.
Fear and Gibson are three-time European medallists and have come fourth at the past two World Championships. They head into this week’s Worlds – which you can watch on the BBC – among the favourites for the podium in a season where they claimed Britain’s first ever medal at the Grand Prix final.
Torvill and Dean have been following their progress with interest for several years since first meeting them on the ice at Alexandra Palace, when the youngsters asked them to look at the programme they were working on.
“We sort of added a few little moves here and there, but I think what struck us right at the beginning was how well matched they were as a team, in stature and personality and ability,” Dean said.
Fear, 25, and Gibson, 30, have continued to improve year on year, winning fans with their crowd-pleasing style of ice dance but also impressing judges with their technical skills.
So, could Fear and Gibson’s Beyonce moves be about to finally take over from Torvill and Dean’s Bolero and provide some new skating role models in Britain?
“We’re retiring this year, so it would be nice to just hand that on to them,” Dean said.
What is different this year is that they have beaten some of their main podium rivals, including placing higher than world champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates to win Skate America and end a 15-year streak of American dominance.
“It’s momentum in competition,” Dean said. “There’s the word of mouth around the events, the judges, the panel, the public perception of them, how the audience react – it does influence.”
As well as targeting Worlds success, Fear and Gibson have next year’s Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina in sight.
The World Championships in Boston is a qualifying event for the Games, with quota places up for grabs.
They run from 25 to 30 March, with Fear and Gibson in action on Friday in the rhythm dance and Saturday in the free dance. The scores from both programmes are added together for the final result.
Their main podium rivals are likely to be Chock and Bates – who are going for a third title in a row – Canadians Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier and European champions Charlene Guignard and Marco Fabbri of Italy.
