Luke Digby's Olympic call a reward for a lifetime of hard work
Luke Digby, a figure skater from Sheffield, says his selection to represent Great Britain at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina in February is the culmination of a ‘lifetime’s project’.
The 24-year-old has been on the path to the Olympics since his mum used to drive him across the city for sessions at iceSheffield, before and after school.
He relocated to Dundee after the Covid pandemic to work alongside pairs partner Anastasia Vaipan-Law and an experienced coach, and his sacrifice has paid off.
Together, Digby and Vaipan-Law – 26-year-old from Blackpool – have won five British titles and made incremental gains on the world stage, including fifth place at the European Championships last winter.
A 12th-place finish at the 2025 World Championships in March in Boston, effectively secured their passage to the Olympics.
“It just makes me smile to start with,” Digby told The Yorkshire Post.
“It’s something I dreamed of over a lifetime of hard work.
“So when you say it, it does kind of give you goosebumps. It’s still not sunk in yet, but I’m sure over the coming weeks it will do.
“This has been a long project, this constant dream of the Olympics. So the announcement is another step on the dream that I’ve had since I was a kid.”
On the progress he and Vaipan-Law have made, Digby added: “Last season was successful and we’d put ourselves in a really strong position with it being the main qualifying season. But the world championships in Boston was the main one, so that was a really big achievement and as you look for these steps along the journey, that was a really big one that we ticked off.”
The Olympics run from February 6 to 22 with arena events such as figure skating taking place in Milan and the snow events primarily in Cortina.
Before that, Digby has a special homecoming to look forward to, with the ISU European Figure Skating Championships coming to the Sheffield Arena from January 13 to 18.
“The Europeans in my home town is a super exciting thing to have to look forward to,” said Digby.
“Then two weeks later we’re straight on the plane to Milan, so it’s going to be a busy time and a busy event, but super exciting.”
The British team for the Olympics is headlined by the ice dance partnership of Lewis Gibson and Lilah Fear who won a bronze medal at the world championships in March and head to Milan as strong contenders.
Elsewhere at the Winter Olympics, Yorkshire’s interest is across a small but wide range of pursuits.
Katie Ormerod, the snowboarder from Brighouse, is hoping to earn selection for her third Olympics having known nothing but frustration on her previous visits. In PyeongChang in 2018 she suffered a broken heel on the practice slopes two days before the Games, and then four years later in the Big Air events, struggled in both the big air and slopestyle events.
This time last year two Yorkshiremen were gunning for a spot in the bobsleigh team, Leon Greenwood, an ex-sprinter from Batley, and Adam Baird, a Royal Marine from Harrogate. Greenwood is still trying to get there but Baird, who was desperately seeking funding all last season to support his Olympic dream has gone back into the Marines.
And for a little more tenuous link, Jacques Jeffries is a French-raised, 23-year-old biathlete who has represented France all his life but recently switched to represent Great Britain due to his parents; his mother was born in Middlesbrough and both parents went to university in Leeds.