LILAH Fear and Lewis Gibson are taking ice dancing in Great Britain to another level.
They certainly do things differently.
For the free dance, they skate to a medley of Halo, End of Time, and Crazy in Love by US superstar Beyoncé.
Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean are regarded as national treasures in BritainRex
So, could Lilah and Lewis’s Beyoncé moves be about to finally take over from Jayne Torvill and Christopher 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,” Christopher told the BBC.
Here’s everything we know about Lilah and Lewis – and why there is so much resting on their performance at this week’s World Championships in Boston.
How the two couples became inextricably linked
If you asked the average British sports fan to name a figure skater, chances are they would say “Torvill and Dean”.
Even in 2025, over 40 years since Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean won Olympic ice dance gold at Sarajevo in 1984 – and despite Great Britain having a new medal-winning, title-chasing ice dance couple in Lilah and Lewis.
Lewis and Lilah are hoping to increase the popularity of ice skating in the UKEPA
“I think Torvill and Dean are the names that everyone in the UK, especially, really relate to,” Gibson admitted to Olympics.com at December’s Grand Prix Final in Grenoble, France. “If we can achieve even remotely close to their feats it would be amazing. I think that’s something that could maybe get our name in there with them.
“But hopefully we can just get people to love the sport again in the UK and really get invested in that, and give it a try and see if they love it as much as we have.”
Lewis and Lilah capture the hearts of the nation
Lilah and Lewis are three-time European medallists and have come fourth at the past two World Championships.
They head into this week’s Worlds among the favourites for the podium in a season where they claimed Britain’s first ever medal at the Grand Prix final.
Jayne and Christopher 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,” said Christopher.
Lilah, 25, and Lewis, 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.
Lewis speaks about being gay.
In 2022, Lewis spoke for the first time about his husband Joshua Walsh, pictured below, and being gay.
Lewis Gibson and his husband, Joshua Walsh, at Montreal Pride 2024
“I’ve seen so many people who have gone before me and just living their truth and being so authentic when they perform in their sport and really just wanting that for myself as well,” Lewis told outsports.com, specifically citing French medal favorite Guillaume Cizeron as an inspiration, as well as Adam Rippon and Robin Cousins.
Specifically, Lewis remembers watching Rippon during a Finlandia Trophy competition ahead of the 2018 Winter Olympics, seeing his skate on the ice and being in an elevator with him holding court.
“There was such an energy, a charisma about him that you cannot stop watching him,” he remembered. “He just lights up the place. And I love that he’s owning everything he wants and who he is.”
Lewis said he feels his public “coming out” was in 2020 when he decided to post a Valentine’s Day photo with Joshua.
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