‘Dancing on Ice’ legends Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean have announced they will perform for the last time on live television in the forthcoming series. The Olympic gold medallists, who also serve as judges on the show, have decided it’s time to retire from performing, citing their age as a factor.
Speaking to The Mirror, Christopher, 66, explained: “This will be our last live skate – here on ‘Dancing on Ice’. We’re doing our last tour this year as well so once we’ve finished our last skate on tour, we won’t be performing again. There are lots of endings.”
“We’ve been doing it a long time and people our age shouldn’t be doing it now. So we’re just happy that we can still do it.”
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The duo, who stepped back from competitive skating in 1998 with an impressive haul of 16 gold medals across World, European and British Championships, plus their iconic Olympic win at Sarajevo in 1984, will continue to share their expertise from the judging panel, which includes Diversity’s Ashley Banjo and ex-‘Strictly’ pro Oti Mabuse.
Jayne, 67, reflected on the journey with ‘Dancing on Ice’, saying: “‘Dancing on Ice’ feels like our baby because we were approached by ITV in the early days and we came up with this format together of how it might work. We didn’t know much about TV but they didn’t know how skating works so together, the programme developed and it’s great that we were there from the beginning.”
The upcoming series will be presented by Holly Willoughby and Stephen Mulhern once more, with a line-up that includes ‘EastEnders’ Charlie Brooks, footballer Anton Ferdinand, ‘The Traitors’ Mollie Pearce, TV host Michaela Strachan, Olympic rower Steve Redgrave and ‘Coronation Street’ actor Sam Aston.