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Gibson, 27, and dance partner Lilah Fear, 22, are among the first Team GB athletes selected for the showpiece taking place in Beijing in exactly 50 days’ time, where they will compete in the ice dance event.

The Scot was a relative latecomer to the sport and admits watching the legendary British duo – who won a stunning gold medal dancing to Bolero at Sarajevo 1984 – on Dancing On Ice is what first set his skating fires burning.

“I started skating after watching the first season of Dancing on Ice, with the amazing Torvill and Dean,” said Gibson, whose journey to the Games has been fuelled by a significant £40,000 injection of funding to figure skating from UK Sport.

Britain's Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson perform during the ice dance free dance program of the European Figure Skating Championship earlier this month in Tallinn

“I just thought it looked like fun. I always played football beforehand, so it was a very different sport to try.

“I went along to my local rink and I enjoyed it so much. Honestly, I just never stopped, never questioned stopping either.

“To be here now and going to the Olympics that Torvill and Dean were so famous for competing in is insane.

“Of course growing up, you get called names. There’s plenty of names but for me what was really great was when competitions and things would go well, you’d be in the school newspaper.

Britain's Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson perform during the European Figure Skating Championship in Tallinn earlier this month

“I was seen to be doing something competitive and doing it well, so that helped me.”Beijing will not be Gibson’s first taste of the Winter Olympics, after he and Fear travelled to PyeongChang in 2018 as part of Team GB’s Ambition Programme.

Gibson points to that as a huge learning experience – but is playing it cool about how the Games might look amid potential restrictions and limited crowds in attendance.

“To go there and be able to experience the Olympics with no stress of competition was really one of the greatest opportunities we could have asked for,” added Gibson, whose sport is one of seven to benefit from UK Sport’s Beijing Support Fund in order to lift their preparations for, and performances at, the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing.

“There’s a lot of different parts floating around as to how it will look and we don’t know, but luckily for us we’ve competed in a few bubble competitions so we’ve had that experience already and I’m grateful for those.

Britain's Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson perform during the ice dance free dance program of the European Figure Skating Championship in Tallinn earlier this month

“It’s not always easy but at least we’ve had some form of training of that at least.

“We both love competing and performing in front of people. Whether there will be a crowd or not we don’t know but that’s something that really fires us up and we enjoy it.

“Just getting to the Olympics for us is such a huge achievement and we go into every competition just wanting to grow and always better all of our performances that we do, master what we do each season as well and then just see where that has us.”

•UK Sport has an ambition to become an ever-greater force in winter sport. The Beijing Support Fund, which utilises Government and National Lottery investment, demonstrates UK Sport’s commitment to a wider group of sports, athletes and teams in the high-performance community as part of its mission to create the greatest decade of extraordinary sporting moments; reaching, inspiring and uniting the nation. For more information visit www.uksport.gov.uk

Lewis Gibson: How Dancing On Ice inspired Scottish skating star to reach the Winter Olympic Games