THE PEOPLE of Basingstoke gave a lukewarm reception to a British Championship which came to town last week.

Saturday night's finale to five days of action at the British Ice Skating Championships played to only a two-thirds-full Planet Ice arena.

The thumbs-down to the event reflected a general downturn in national skating standards in Britain since the heyday of Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean.

For the first time, there was no national television coverage of the event - but those who did attend saw Marika Humphreys and Vitaliy Baronov become worthy successors to the ice dance crown once held by Torvill and Dean.

The biggest certs for a title repeat maintained the number one spot they had held throughout the four disciplines.

Starting and finishing to an up-beat rock 'n' roll tempo, the British Olympic choices for Salt Lake City next year proved popular champions.

Pippa Towler-Green, daughter of four-times world champion Diane Towler, was unable to match the medal finish of her sister Candice, who carried off the junior dance gold medal with her partner James Phillipson.

Pippa, skating with Robert Burgerman, finished just out of the senior dance medals with a fourth-place finish.

Coach Vincent Kyle, a former British champion, partnered one of his pupils, Chloe Kyriacou, to sixth place.

Basingstoke's Stephanie Allwright, in the junior ladies' section, failed to hold on to the third place she achieved after her short programme and finished just out of the medals for the second year running.

Allwright, who was fourth in the primary ladies last year, fell on her triple jump in her free programme while Ayr's Claire Smith climbed from sixth to third.

Stephanie's father, Len, said: "She was disappointed but we were very happy with the way she skated."

The 16-year-old from Lychpit showed a five-place improvement on her placing in Ayr last year.

Zoe Jones, from Swindon, regained the senior women's title while Matthew Davies is the new men's champion.

Tiffany Skifas and Andrew Seabrook had simply to skate to standard to take the pairs crown as they were the only starters.