The 17-year-old beat her personal best by seven points and judges were impressed with her spins and original movements.
Her hunger to become the best resulted in her travelling to Switzerland last year, for world-class mentoring and the opportunity to learn from skaters better than herself.
"There is something inside you that knows you can do better and that you can achieve what you want to. It feeds you and you just sort of keep going," she said.
"When I came back, everyone noticed a difference and said I just look like a different person on the ice."
MacGibbon trains twice a day and balances this with Correspondence School.
"They say I look like a sour puss when I skate, because I have this angry face when I'm focusing, but I'm not really that scary."
Training includes footwork to warm up her muscles, spinning, jumps and correcting mistakes.
"You have to build all your feeling and muscle memory so you do not have to think of everything in a millisecond."
MacGibbon started skating 10 years ago and her first international competition was in Sydney when she was 8.
"When I was little and I skated, I used to go round and round and never get off. My mum would have to come and chase me to get me off," she said.
Her goals include a top three placing in the New Zealand ice figure skating championships in Auckland at the end of this month. She also hopes to travel to Russia next year to train and compete in St Petersburg.
"I have a friend who came to skate here and I'm going to go stay with him. We're both solo skaters and we both push each other."
In the longer term, she aims to compete in the Grand Prix of figure skating.
"If you want to be a skater, you have to be really strong. You have to have character. You cannot worry about things."
FAST LANE
Name: Sarah MacGibbon (17).
School: Correspondence School.
Sport: Ice skating.
Achievements: North Island champion, has been competing internationally since she was 8.
- Cameron Carpenter
