Torvill and Dean’s stunning routine remains perfection on ice, 40 years on

Sign up to our free sport newsletter for all the latest news on everything from cycling to boxing Sign up to our free sport email for all the latest news Sign up to our free sport email for all the latest news SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. But Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean’s performance to Ravel’s ‘Bolero’ at the 1984 Sarajevo Olympics remains the byword for skating beauty, the perfect moment that, for all the sport’s enduring majesty and penchant for controversy, remains unsurpassed. Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean dancing the Bolero in Lillehammer in 1994 ) The pair are in their late sixties now but they remain synonymous by their surnames, and their influence on the sport and its subsequent generations, increasingly due to their association with ITV’s ‘Dancing on Ice’ is as indelible as ever. But Ravel’s 1928 orchestral composition will always belong to Torvill and Dean, its opening bars instantly sweeping those of us of a certain age back to the night when we were one among 24 million others sat in front of our television sets to witness sporting history. We are ourselves.” It has been a proven a more fruitful relationship for the current British number ones, Lewis Gibson and Lilah Fear, whose two European silver medals and current world ranking of two make them the most successful British ice dance pairing since the halcyon days of the 1980s.