The young skater has overcome a nasty back injury and is about to switch to correspondence school so she can train more.
MacGibbon (15) finished her last NCEA exam yesterday and heads to Melbourne at the end of the week to compete in the Australian national ice skating championships.
Competing in the novice solo grade, she is aiming for a top-half finish in the field of 23.
MacGibbon has been skating since she was 7 but had a nasty accident when at intermediate school which put her future in doubt.
She was doing a gym exercise at school when she landed awkwardly and immediately felt a pain in her back.
Though MacGibbon did not need surgey and did not spend a lot of time in hospital after breaking a vertebra, she was ordered to have complete rest for six months.
"So I couldn't do anything.
"Just rest and take lots of Nurofen.
"But slowly the back came right and I could get back on to the ice but it was totally different to what I had done before," she said.
"It was pretty frustrating because I just couldn't do what I had been used to.
"I just had to start again.
"But slowly it all came back and the technique returned.
"I don't really feel it anymore."
She now trains four days a week, sometimes twice a day, as she eyes the competition in Australia, and her first time representing New Zealand overseas.
MacGibbon finished second at the New Zealand championships in Dunedin a couple of months ago, behind Auckland's Iyrin Quigley, and she has been training hard under her Russian coach, Sanis Shakirzianau.
Next year, she will spend plenty much time with her coach as she switches from Queen's High School to doing school work through correspondence.
MacGibbon said the move was to increase training and allow her to go as far as possible in the sport.
But for now her focus is on the trip to Melbourne where she said she would be the sole New Zealand contestant.
"It's going to be real interesting, taking everyone else on."
