Dancing on Ice’s Jayne Torvill shares health issues ahead of retiring with Christopher Dean

Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean have announced their retirement from skating, with them set to perform for the final time on live TV on the new series of ITV’s Dancing on Ice

Renowned ice skater Jayne Torvill has spoken about her health ahead of retiring alongside Christopher Dean.

Jayne, 67, and Christopher, 66, have been skating together for decades but have announced that they will soon be retiring. They are set to skate for the final time on live TV in the new series of Dancing on Ice, which began last week.

Ahead of their retirement, the Olympic gold medalists have been reflecting on their careers in interviews. Jayne shared recently that the pair have “never really stopped skating,” teasing that it has kept them “fit and healthy”. She however revealed that there are “aches and pains” every so often.

Speaking to Prima magazine, as reported by the Express, she said: “We’ve never really stopped skating, and if we’re in a period when we’re not training together, we both use the gym quite a lot and keep fit that way.” Jayne said that even after periods of having not skated, their abilities are “back” within 20 minutes of returning to the ice and are “always there”.

Jayne added: “It’s a bit like riding the bike story. But we’ve done it our whole lives and I think that’s a big asset in keeping us fit and healthy, although there are aches and pains every now and then.”

Jayne and Christopher’s career together has included winning a gold medal each at the Winter Olympics in Sarajevo in 1984 following their performance to Maurice Ravel’s Boléro. The pals have also been world champions.

Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean are set to retire from ice skating

Speaking to the Mirror about their retirement, Christopher said in an interview published recently: “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.” He added: “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.”

Jayne Torvill (left) and Christopher Dean (right) are set to retire from ice skating soon(Image: Jeff Spicer/Getty Images)

Their career together has included winning gold at the Winter Olympics in 1984(Image: Getty Images)

Although they will no longer perform on Dancing on Ice, the pair are set to remain on the judging panel of the ITV show alongside Diversity‘s Ashley Banjo and former Strictly Come Dancing star Oti Mabuse. Jayne has teased that the show feels like their “baby”.

She told us: “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.” She added: “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.”

Their final tour, Torvill & Dean: Our Last Dance, is set to run from April to July. The next episode of Dancing on Ice will air on Sunday at 6.30pm on ITV and ITVX.