Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean have been dancing together for 50 years (Image: Popperfoto via Getty Images)
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Jayne Torvill has revealed the real reason behind her incredibly successful 50-year dancing partnership with Christopher Dean. With the pair set to hang up their skates after one final tour of the UK, the secret to their success is they ‘never got married’.
Thee pair, who also teamed up on Dancing on Ice, are going to end their tour in their hometown of Nottingham with their famous Bolero, which won them the Winter Olympics gold medal in Sarajevo in 1984 after first teaming up in 1975.
Speaking to the Daily Mail’s Weekend, Torvill responded to the question of how they managed to compete together for so many years: “The answer is because we never got married, that’s why.”
Dean agreed, adding: “Some people make it work, but from our point of view it would have complicated things. If you’re a couple off the ice and you fall out, you don’t want to go and skate with each other at six in the morning do you?”
The couple are set to hang up their skates (Image: Daily Mirror)
Torvill, 67, married her husband Phil Christensen in 1990 and the couple have two children together.
Dean, 66, was married to world ice dance champion Isabelle Duchesnay from 1991 to 1993. She once said: “I felt that he (Dean) had two women in his life.”
He later married American skater Jill Trenary, with whom he has two sons, before the couple separated in 2010. He is currently in a relationship with ice dancer Karen Barber.
Torvill admitted it will become ‘quite emotional’ as the pair move closer to the final night of their farewell tour. Their has been speculation about the dancing partners’ relationship for years but they insist they have never been more than friends.
The pair have appeared on Dancing on Ice more recently (Image: ITV)
Dean insists their relationship has been stronger as friends and business partners, allowing them to compete at three Olympic Games and five World Championships.
More recently they have starred on reality show Dancing on Ice since its inception in 2006, first as coaches and then as judges. The last season’s finale on Sunday, March 9 acted as Torvill and Dean’s swansong on the programme.
Torvill told the Mail’s Weekend: “We did everything together. It was always the two of us travelling together and looking after each other.
“It wasn’t really talked about (to get romantically involved). It was just something that happened. We’ve talked about it since as proper adults. I think we’re grown up enough now, aren’t we?”
