All photos (incl. cover photo) courtesy of Anastasia & Luke’s Instagrams.
With injuries slowing down their singles careers, British skaters Anastasia Vaipan-Law and Luke Digby decided to try pairs skating.
Vaipan-Law, while training as a singles skater in Dundee, felt her career was coming to a close after suffering a knee injury and undergoing surgery. However, her passion for skating still remained, which prompted her to look into the possibility of pairs skating.
Digby, who was training as a singles skater under coach Stéphane Lambiel in Champéry, Switzerland, has suffered knee injuries himself. He asked Lambiel to set up a taster session for pairs, so the Swiss coach brought in Olympic Champion Bruno Massot to teach some of the basics, which inspired him to continue.
Vaipan-Law’s coach, Simon Briggs, spoke to Digby about the possibility of the two partnering.
“Actually getting together and having a tryout wasn’t anything really formal, it was just simply a quick chat with [Simon]. It was a simple start really, and even before we had the try-out, it wasn’t really a try-out because I think, certainly from my perspective, I knew it would work.”
Favourite program?
Luke: In pairs, Aljona [Savchenko] and Bruno [Massot’s] 2018 Free Skate
Ana: The same, I’ve watched it about 25 million times!
Hailing from Blackpool, in the North East of England, Anastasia Vaipan-Law was practically raised in an ice rink. With both of her parents being skaters, Vaipan-Law began taking lessons when she was around six years old.
Luke Digby entered the sport in a similar way as other British skaters, through taking lessons with Skate UK (BIS’s Learn to Skate course) in his home rink of Sheffield.
The first time the pair skated together was in December of 2019. Due to Digby’s injury, they focused their attention on doing basic stroking and edge work rather than rushing into anything extreme. Digby describes their “first week together” being in March of 2020. Just a few days later, the country went into lockdown.
“For about three and a bit months, we didn’t really train together or see each other or anything like that, because [lockdown] was still so strict.”
Having to learn new elements isn’t easy, especially in terms of the different requirements and positions that make up a twist or death spiral. Vapian-Law explains that they took to throws “all right. Luke and I found that quite easy to learn.” Vapian-Law started training pairs in Canada a year or so prior to partnering with Luke.
Anastasia says that, “Understanding twists and the death spiral, is just having your body in positions that are clearly abnormal to a singles scale. Obviously, it’s all about timing and I think learning not only yourself, but [your partner’s] timing as well, and learning that you have to go at the same time is obviously completely different. So I think that was one of the biggest things and everything else obviously has been difficult.”
Luke added, “The death spirals were difficult, that’s quite a weird one.” He continued to explain that, “The lifts as well, obviously, I find them challenging when we went from basic positions into more variations and difficult things like that. It’s working day-in day-out and they gradually get better. So I think at times I always knew that but I think sometimes it was hard to keep going when things were quite difficult and you feel they’re not going to get better and then you know a week, two weeks, three weeks later, they do continue to improve. After the first six to eight months, you feel quite confident and you’re able to put everything together in a program.”
The duo took this time to rest and recover, with both returning to their respective family homes. Coaches from Ice Dundee set up Zoom calls for skaters to keep in contact.
The pair reunited in Scotland in July of 2020, and were finally able to train together. “We were just so eager to start,” Vaipan-Law said. She further explained that “We just finally got a new thing and then it came to a sudden end. Obviously everybody was a little bit in a position where it’s hard to stay motivated, but I think the good thing was we had something brand new to start, and we both just wanted to get going.”
Easiest and Hardest element to do?
Anastasia : Nothing’s easy but triple twist is hard and easiest back outside death spiral
Luke: Twist hardest, easiest solo spin
When they made their debut as a pairs team at Finlandia Trophy 2021, the duo wanted to enjoy it. Digby and Vapian-Law found it inspiring to be competing with some of the top skaters in the world, and placed twelfth out of fifteen entries.
A few months later at their first National Championships, they won the National title by 0.51 points, beating long time champions (and previously solo entrants), Zoe Jones / Christopher Boyadji.
Both Digby and Vapian-Law are still shocked to call themselves National Champions. “I tend to forget 99.9% of the time that we are,” Anastasia quipped. She continued on to express that, “It’s a weird one, but I think we were so happy. We put in so much effort and we did work really hard and it was a difficult process, obviously, because it’s not easy to switch completely. And to end our first season that way, I think we were just so proud of ourselves being so eager as well to then want to come back the following year, this year, the season even better.”
Vaipan-Law/Digby received the news that they were being called up for the European Championships only four days before the competition was due to start. Jones/Boyadji had to withdraw due to Jones testing positive for COVID.
“It was Saturday night, I was at work and my phone starts going once, twice, and it’s Debi [Briggs] ringing me and then it’s [Simon] ringing me,” Luke detailed. “Immediately, I looked at my phone and I just knew, for whatever reason, I just knew what it was going to be. So Saturday night, we got the call and then Sunday, late afternoon, we were on a plane out to Tallinn. So it was not even a matter of 24 hours really, between finding out and travelling.”
“I actually thought Simon was joking because he loves to wind me up especially because I’m the most gullible,” Anastasia revealed. “I actually thought he was on the windup. It was literally nine o’clock at night, I think I just got myself ready, pajamas on, off to go to sleep, nice early night. Next minute, I’m on the phone. I’m like, what? Yeah, it was a very quick turnaround. So we were quite happy with what we did out there.”
What is your partner’s best quality?
Luke: On the ice, her performance, she really sells every performance.
Anastasia: I think his performance side is good as well, but also his strength
Vaipan-Law/Digby began their season once again at Finlandia Trophy in September, but unfortunately had lackluster skates. However, the following week they competed at Tayside Trophy at their home rink in Dundee and had a thirty-three point improvement.
The pair will also make their Grand Prix debut this year at MK John Wilson Trophy, in Sheffield– Digby’s home town, from November 11th to 13th 2022.
“It’s so exciting,” Vaipan-Law said, on the allocation of the event.
“I think just to have, regardless of where it is in the UK, it’s nice to have major events back, and I’ve said to everyone at British Ice Skating and everyone that I’ve spoken to it about,” Digby continued. “We’ve had a couple of Junior Grand Prix before and we had Europeans in 2012, which I was a flower boy at, so I was there picking up teddies after [Evgeni] Plushenko, [Florent] Amodio and Brian Joubert. The site that it’s in, my home rink, where I’ve skated probably thousands of times before, it’s the rink we do Nationals every year. So it really is like home. But it’ll be a bit different, to see in a full crowd and all the media attention and everything around it, but I’m really looking forward to it.”
The pair’s overall goal for this season is to build upon last year by working on their performances and programs. The duo is hoping to get assigned to both the European Championships in Finland, and the World Championships in Japan.
If they receive these assignments, Vapian-Law/Digby would be the fourth British pairs team to make an appearance at the World Championships in the last 20 years.
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