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Fear, 26, and Gibson, 31, entered the ice dance free dance portion of the competition in fourth place after the rhythm dance, where they earned a score of 85.47. This left them trailing behind Gilles and Poirier, who occupied third place. With their position in the standings, the duo faced the challenge of delivering an extraordinary performance in their free dance to secure Britain’s first medal at the 2026 Winter Games.
Their routine was deeply inspired by Scottish culture, featuring elements such as The Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond, Auld Lang Syne, and The Proclaimers’ hit I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles). They appeared adorned in tartan and had worked closely with highland dance experts to refine their choreography. The performance began strongly, with a complex multi-stage stationary lift that scored highly, but troubles arose during the second element, sequential twizzles. Fear visibly wobbled during this rotation across the ice, resulting in a negative grade of execution score—an especially costly error in an Olympic final.
Reflecting on the mistake, Fear acknowledged the impact of the error, saying, “It was just a really costly technical mistake, which was tough very early in the programme because I knew that we’d lost bronze at that point.” Despite this, she was determined to keep fighting throughout the rest of the routine, expressing the internal conflict she experienced: “But I also really wanted to not let the Olympic experience just disappear because of that so it’s this battle of taking it in and doing my best the rest of the way while also knowing what I’d just done. And it’s not what we’ve trained, it was costly and devastating.” Although they recovered with a clean skate to finish on a high note featuring Highland jigs and a dance lift, their overall technical score had already suffered greatly.
Both skaters clearly felt the weight of their performance, with Fear showing signs of nerves before the routine and appearing shattered afterward. Gibson commented on the experience, saying, “When you don’t perform the way you want to, on any day, it’s tough to take but at the Olympic Games, it’s even harder. I think we’ll look back at this one day and 100% learn from it. We do that at every single event that we go to and compete in. We’ll just move forward.” Known affectionately as the ‘Disco Brits,’ Fear and Gibson have rapidly become fan favorites worldwide, admired for their energetic and skillful routines. They had a notable year with Britain’s first World Championship medal in four decades and a podium finish at the home European Championships in Sheffield, yet an Olympic medal proved elusive this time.
In addition to Fear and Gibson, Britain was represented by Phebe Bekker and James Hernandez, who, on their Olympic debut at ages 24 and 20 respectively, made it to the final stage. They finished 17th overall set against a season-best score of 179.45, marking a promising start to their Olympic careers
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