Champion figure skater Anastasia Vaipan-Law: ‘You have to allow yourself to fall’

You’re going to fall and fail, no matter your pursuit. With figure skating it comes with the territory. 

“You have to allow yourself to fall. Ideally, not crazily,” says champion figure skater Anastasia Kristina Vaipan-Law. 

“But the more you refrain from falling, the more likely you are to have a worse fall. If you just let yourself go down, your body knows and you’re going to get your hands out. 

“People try to stay up and that’s the worst thing that can happen. You’ve just got to let yourself go.” 

Advice for the ice rink, but maybe valid for all of us. As we head into a Winter Olympics year, there will be plenty of tumbles on the ice and slopes. For professional athletes, these may be unfortunate incidents but they also represent a journey they have all been on. Success comes not despite the challenges, but because of them.

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Vaipan-Law, with her skating partner Luke Digby, is a five-time British National Champion. They ranked in the top five at the European Figure Skating Championships 2025 in Estonia, the highest position for a British pairs team in over 30 years, and qualified for the Olympics. 

This was the achievement of a lifelong dream that started at the ice arena at the Pleasure Beach in Blackpool two decades ago. 

“My mum and my dad are both skaters themselves,” Vaipan-Law says. “My mum was working there, doing the show and then coaching. After school, I was there all the time. Rather than causing trouble just kicking around the ice rink doing nothing, I got on the ice. 

“Everything came quite natural to me. I wasn’t fazed. I threw myself around and didn’t care what I hurt. People were going, ‘Oh, you’re going to be in the Olympics one day.’ There was no other goal I’ve ever had in this sport since about eight years old. 

“Growing up, me and my family, we could afford to do things but it’s not like we were well off. Skating is one of the most expensive sports out there. It was so difficult to be able to pay for everything.” 

For extra coaching, Vaipan-Law would travel from Blackpool to East Kilbride every weekend. Her mother then moved for work to Aberdeen and she did same the journey in reverse until she made the decision to move to Dundee by herself. 

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“I must have been 13, maybe 14 and I’ve been here ever since. Luckily, I was in a position where the people around me, I never really found myself in any trouble. 

“My story is quite unique but at the same time, everybody has their own version of it. My skating partner Luke moved to Switzerland to train. He was a bit older, 18. He lived with other skaters in a chalet, as you’d imagine in Switzerland.” 

Vaipan-Law and Digby compete in pairs. That’s different to ice dance – the Torvill and Deans that focus on intricate footwork and elegant synchronisation. Vaipan-Law describes pairs as the “acrobatic side of figure skating”. 

“What you’d expect to see is the ladies being thrown above the head, spinning three times round then caught by their partner or thrown across the ice, spinning three time and landing by themselves. There’s a lot of twisting and turning going on, jumps and your spins.” 

Early January brings a rare opportunity to see the highest level of figure skating in the UK, as the European Championships slide into Sheffield. 

“Watching a performance live is literally mind boggling,” Vaipan-Law says. “We’ve got a pretty good British team out as well. I’d say this is the strongest team we’ve had in a long, long time.” 

Sheffield is Digby’s home rink so the home support will be strong. The event is the perfect warm-up ahead of the Milan/Cortina Olympics that begin in February. 

“Ambitions for 2026 is just to be able to put down some clean performances,” Vaipan-Law explains. “We’ve worked our entire lives, sacrificed absolutely everything. It would just be very nice to finish the Games knowing that we put everything out there.” 

And even if there are a few slips along the way, they’re still part of the journey. 

“If you don’t fail, how do you get better? Failure is your biggest lesson and probably your best one.” 

ISU Figure Skating European Championships are in Sheffield until 18 January.

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