Dancing on Ice’s Torvill and Dean say ‘they will have to hang up their skates for good soon’

As they glide, jump and spin effortlessly over the ice, it’s hard to believe it’s been more than 50 years since Torvill and Dean started skating – or that it’s already been a few years since they picked up their bus passes.

Tomorrow the duo will again dazzle fans with another performance on Dancing on Ice, no doubt with as much grace and precision as when they wowed the world and won an Olympic gold 37 years ago.

And for Jayne and Chris, now 63 and 62, their routines on the ITV show are more special than ever – because they know it won’t be long before they will have to hang up their skates for good.

Chris says: “Each performance is getting closer to the final one and that’s why we’re appreciating what we’re doing now.

“When you’re younger you don’t think it’s going to end and then, when you get to the twilight of things, you begin to realise ‘You know what, this has been good to us, it’s our old friend’ and you’ve got to treat it with respect.”

I ask if the pair might still be performing into their 70s and Chris whispers: “Shoot us if we are!”

Jayne agrees. “I don’t know when we’ll call it a day. We tried to retire in the 90s then Dancing on Ice popped up and suddenly we found ourselves performing again.

“And while we still love it, and can do it to a level we’re happy with, we’ll keep on. But I don’t know about when I’m 77.”

Chris says he’s already noticing warning signs. “I can’t run any more, my knees don’t let me. On the ice, I’m not as fast, I can feel that.

“So we have to be as creative as we can from a movement point of view to make up for it.”

Not that anyone else has noticed. Earlier this month they wowed viewers by recreating their Olympic gold medal-winning Bolero in the wild for the first time…on a frozen Alaskan lake.

On tomorrow’s show viewers will be treated to a spectacular routine with promising new skaters, Atl Ogay-Perez, 13, and Ashlie Slatter, 11.

It was recorded before lockdown and will be the first time the duo haven’t performed live on the show.

Chris says: “We worked for six weeks on getting the routine together and they were a joy to work with. It’s a charming little routine that will warm everyone’s hearts.”

Virus restrictions mean Jayne and Chris have to stay two metres apart – clearly a source of frustration for the pair, who have been friends since childhood.

Jayne, who lives in Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex, with husband Chris Christensen and daughter Jessica, 14 – son Kieren, 18, is at uni – says: “It’s really strange. Normally we’d train four times a week together. Now we can’t even touch each other.”

She reveals they decided not to form a bubble for the duration of the show as it would have meant leaving their partners and moving in together.

“And that would have been a little too strange,” laughs Chris, who normally lives in Colorado Springs in the US with former Dancing on Ice judge Karen Barber.

The perils of Covid-19 on the show were clear this week when comedian Rufus Hound had to quit after he tested positive.

Jayne says she’d like him to return next year: “He never expected to get past show one and was quite emot­ional when we gave him the golden ticket. Then he gets this positive test. I feel so bad for him.”

Lockdown hasn’t stopped the close friends staying in touch. Chris says: “We talk daily either by Zoom or phone. Sometimes it’s just a short ‘did you see that?’ Or sometimes it’s much longer, especially if Jayne has one of her stories to tell. She goes into
a lot of detail; what colour the person was wearing and what the weather was like.

“We talk about anything, we’ve known each other for so long there are no secrets.

“We’ve skated together for 46 years and known each other since we were nine. That’s over 50 years of close proximity, growing up, the Olympics, touring, settling down, having kids. It’s been a long time together.”

Jayne and Chris grew up near Nottingham, Chris in a two-bed council flat in the mining village of Calverton and Jayne in Clifton, a sprawling housing estate.

Before storming to fame at the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Olympics, Jayne was an insurance clerk and Chris a policeman. Their recent trip to Alaska was the result of a mural of a frozen mountain lake they remembered seeing at Nottingham ice rink as kids.

During the visit Chris was able to scuba dive under the ice, revealing a daredevil side few fans know about.

He says: “I still get a thrill and challenge myself and that was one of those times. I used to do a bit of motor racing and recently I did a sky dive.”

The trip also brought home the effects of climate change. Chris, who has sons Jack, 22 and Sam, 20, says: “At the edges of the world, where the climate is at an extreme, that’s where you see the effects more immediately.

“We could see clearly where the glaciers were and where others were eroding away.

“When we get over Covid, climate is the next big thing for us to get our heads around.” For now, though, Torvill and Dean have the unenviable task of choosing whose dream to crush when they send another celeb home tomorrow night.

Jayne said she believed she made the right choice sending skier Graham Bell home last week.

But on who might go on to be crowned this year’s champion? She sighs, ums and errs: “Oh, that’s like choosing your favourite child.”

Chris agrees: “Everyone is our favourite – at least until we have to vote one of them off.”

• Dancing on Ice, ITV, 6pm, Sunday