Scottish ice dancer Lewis Gibson relishing reputation as part of modern day Torvill and Dean in Beijing

Being dubbed the new ‘Torvill and Dean’ has been far from helpful for a succession of British ice dancers but the latest to get the dreaded mention may just be the real deal.

Scot Lewis Gibson and partner Lilah Fear scored a top ten on their Winter Olympic debut in Beijing, competing 34 years to the day since 26 million Brits tuned in to watch Jayne and Chris score a string of perfect sixes with their iconic Bolero routine in Sarajevo.

And the Olympic legends could not have been more impressed.

British success has been in short supply since their heyday, with no medal since their return to the Olympic stage in 1994, when they won bronze in Lillehammer.

But the duo believe Gibson and Fear could represent the best chance to crack skating's top performers since Scottish brother and sister John and Sinead Kerr, two-time European bronze medallists and Olympians in Vancouver and Sochi.

"We know this is a very special day for British ice skating," added Fear, who finished fifth at the recent European Championships in Estonia.

"Jayne and Chris sent us a video message wishing us good luck and we had a Zoom call with them before we left where they expressed their belief in us and that made us feel so empowered before our Olympic debut.

"This whole experience was so much fun and everything we wanted, it was the feeling we'd been visualising up to this point. It's hard to not look at the scores but we are just trying to feel anchored to this moment.

"It's hard to compare competition to competition but the performance was definitely better than our last skate at the Europeans."

Gibson, from Prestwick, and Fear have been together for six years - which in ice dance terms is not long, some of their opponents spending more than a