SKATING ON GRINICE
Jayne and Chris admit they’re smiling through the pain – but 34 years after their moment of Olympic glory they still have no plans to retire
ICE stars Torvill and Dean have been friends and skating partners for more than 40 years – and they still talk most days.
They’re living with a few aches and pains and have faced various injuries over the years. But they’ve no plans to hang up their skates just yet, even though Jayne Torvill is 60 and Christopher Dean is 59.
They were at Glasgow’s Braehead ice rink yesterday to promote their upcoming Dancing on Ice Live UK tour, which comes to Glasgow’s SSE Hydro on April 6 to 8 with a whole host of celebrities and professional skaters.
The tour will be the first time in four years they’ve performed together on ice – although they appeared in panto on rollerblades in the intervening years.
Jayne said: “We didn’t perform on ice skates for four years but they were never hung up.
“Chris was doing coaching and choreography for other people, so he was on the ice quite a lot. I was on not as much – but I did go a few times during that gap.”
Now they’re getting older, they have to be more careful.
Jayne admitted: “You just do age-appropriate things rather than throw yourself too much without thinking about it.
“We’re lucky that we’re still able to do it. We appreciate it even more.
“Our bodies are used to doing lots of physical stuff but you still have those aches and pains and they come back again once you stop working.
“Considering how much I’ve done performing and touring all over, I think I’ve been fairly lucky injury-wise. Chris has had more than me. He’s had surgery on shoulders, his knees and various cuts and things, because the blades can be a bit dangerous sometimes.”
Chris added: “It does get harder, that’s for sure. And you have to prepare yourself for longer and get ready and the injuries – I have things from the past – they just increase.
“They’re there all the time, so you get used to them. But at the same time you have to look after yourself and you have to take more care.”
Chris lives in America and coaches and choreographs skaters five times a week.
Jayne said: “We’ve tried to give up. In 1998, we decided to retire quietly – and then we got this phone call out of the blue eight years later asking about Dancing on Ice and would we be able to teach celebrities to skate.
“That opened a whole new decade of us getting back on the ice and performing again and touring.”
ITV have recommissioned Dancing on Ice for next year.
But Jayne said: “In our role of judges, we don’t have to do the choreography and performances that we did on the show before. Physically, it’s less work.”
Jayne revealed people still sometimes assume she and Chris are romantically involved.
She said: “We still get it. We’re used to dealing with it and so are the other halves, so that’s fine. It’s not a problem.”
Chris lives in Colorado Springs with former Dancing on Ice judge Karen Barber. The pair began dating four years ago after working together on the show.
He has two sons, Jack, 19, and Sam, 17, from his second marriage to American skater Jill Trenary.
Jayne has been married to Phil Christensen for more than 25 years. They have two adopted children, Kieran, 15, and Jessica, 11, and live in East Sussex.
Jayne thinks not being a couple helped her and Chris to succeed on the ice.
When they first started skating together, it was important for them to concentrate on that.
She said: “It was about keeping our focus on what we were doing, on our goals and working towards the next competition.
“The workload is so intense that it’s nice to walk away from it at the end of the day.”
But the pair remain close. Jayne said: “If we’re not together physically, Chris and I speak pretty much every day to check in. We talk about everything.”
Chris added: “We’ve known each for such a long time. Over that time, you get to know each other really well and your thoughts and ideas start to entwine.
“We know to some degree how each other is feeling, what their reaction is going to be to things.”
He said it’s like Jayne is a member of his family, adding: “It’s a relationship that’s brother, sister, husband, wife, business
partner. When we were younger, the Press were wanting to put us together all the time. We kept up the mystique.
“Sometimes people come up and say, ‘We always thought you’d have made a lovely couple.’
“We always say how we’ve been together so long is because we never got married.
“We spend a lot of time together and if you took it home, whatever has happened on the ice, there would be no escape from it, so we did the right thing.”
The pair scooped an Olympic gold with their Bolero routine in 1984. It was watched by 23.95million viewers in the UK alone.
Jayne admits when she hears Bolero on the radio, she looks around at other people.
She said: “I look at the reaction of the people around me if it pops up, because people look at me for my reaction. It makes me smile.”
Jayne’s hoping Dancing on Ice will continue to inspire younger generations to take up skating.
Donna Air and Mark Hanretty will join other stars from the current series for the tour, including Jake Quickenden and Vanessa Bauer, Max Evans and Ale Izquierdo, Cheryl Baker and Dan Whiston and two-time former champion Ray Quinn and Alexandra Schauman.
Denise Van Outen will join Jayne and Chris on the judging panel and the tour also will feature professionals Matt Evers, Sylvain Longchambon and Lukasz Rozycki.
Jayne said: “If you enjoyed the TV show, then it’s so exciting to see it live and see the speed of the skaters. “It’s a competition and will be judged and generally the audience can vote for who they want to win on that particular night.
“In the second half of the show we crown the champion and then celebrate with lots of routines from our celebrities and professionals.
“When we did the first series in 2006, we kept hearing that ice rinks were getting full with people going. That’s what led to seasonal rinks at the time – and they still continue. So we feel slightly responsible for that.” ● Dancing on Ice Live is at the SSE Hydro in Glasgow from April 6 to 8. For tickets, go to www.dancingonicetour.co.uk