Three decades’ wait for a British ice dance medal continued on a heartbreaking night for ice dancers Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson, who finished seventh overall.
The pair were ranked world No 1s heading into this season and a run of consistent top results, including four European podium finishes in a row and a world bronze medal in 2025, meant they were highly fancied to become the first British figure skating medallists since Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean won bronze in Lillehammer 1994.
But Torvill and Dean could only watch on as the pair missed their chance at a first Olympic medal, finishing 13 points off the podium, with GB’s drought at this Olympics continuing into a sixth day.
France’s Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron won gold with a huge score of 135.64 for their free dance to the soundtrack from ‘The Whale’, and 225.82 overall, despite errors from Cizeron and a lack of synchronicity in their twizzles. They collapsed into each other’s arms as the scores were announced.
It is Cizeron’s second Olympic gold in succession after winning in Beijing with former partner Gabriella Papadakis, who has since accused him of controlling and bullying behaviour.
He only teamed up with Fournier Beaudry in March last year and they have only competed together since November, with Fournier Beaudry switching citizenship from Canada to France in order to continue her career after her boyfriend and former partner Nikolaj Sorensen was suspended over allegations of ‘sexual maltreatment’.
Three-time world champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the US, skating to a flamenco version of Paint It Black by Ramin Djawadi, scored a season’s best of 134.67 and 224.39 overall to take silver.
Canadians Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier took bronze with the third-best dance of the night, scoring 131.56 for their ‘Starry Night’ themed programme set to Vincent by Govardo – a tribute to Gilles’ late mother – and 217.74 overall.
Having been in fourth place after Monday’s rhythm dance, a high-octane, crowd-pleasing routine to a Spice Girls medley, Fear and Gibson pair dropped a further three places after a costly mistake early on.
Fear looked nervous in the warm-up and has been troubled by her twizzles in practice all week. A mistake in that section in the Spice Girls routine on Monday cost them slightly as they failed to replicate their third-place finish in the same programme in the team event. In January’s European Championships they dropped from provisional second after the rhythm dance thanks to a stumble in the free dance twizzles.
In a hugely competitive field, even the tiniest of stumbles can completely change the standings, and it proved the same again on Wednesday as Fear made an error in the same twizzle section, stumbling out of them and only recording a level 2, compared to Gibson’s 4.
The rest of the routine – an energetic, Scottish-inspired routine to The Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond, Proclaimers classic I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) and Auld Lang Syne, complete with authentic Highland dance choreography – was excellent and Fear recovered superbly, but the early errors proved terminal despite their beaming smiles.
The pair embraced at the end, with Fear’s eyes betraying her devastation, and they hugged as they headed to the kiss and cry, waving to the audience, many of them waving British flags, one more time.
Fear was comforted by coaches Romain Haguenauer and Marie-France Dubreuil and closed her eyes in preparation for the scores. The final number of 118.85 was nearly eight full points off their season’s best, and 12th on the night.
The overall score of 204.32 was only enough for seventh, their worst result since finishing 10th in Beijing 2022.
Fear said afterwards on TNT Sports: “I can’t believe I just did that. I feel so bad, I’m devastated. I’m in shock; I can’t believe it happened. It’s such a shame because I know what we’re capable of. I just feel so bad. I don’t have the words yet and it will take a while to process it.”
Jon Eley, performance director at British Ice Skating, said: “For them to skate as well as they did all the way through, other than one slight mistake, I am gutted for them.
“They practice it [the twizzle sequence] multiple times a day. It’s one of the toughest moves in ice dance. They are pushing the limits with all the different things they do.
“For them not to deliver on this stage is upsetting for them and us as a team are trying to get around that, too.
“They are the ultimate professionals, they will keep working together. The fact that they are so strong together will mean they come back even stronger.”
However Britain’s second pair, Phebe Bekker and James Hernandez, continued their stellar season with a season’s best performance in the free dance, a lyrical rendition of Romeo and Juliet, to go with their season’s best score of 72.46 in the rhythm dance to an upbeat George Michael medley.
Their free score of 106.99 was only enough for third on the night, with the young pair finishing 17th overall on their Olympic debut.
