Broken toe and broken dreams for Dance star Aoife
FORMER Miss Ireland Aoife Walsh has said her ‘dream is shattered’ after the strain of rehearsals for Dancing With The Stars caused her to fracture her toe, forcing her to pull out of the TV show.
Britain’s Next Top Model finalist Alannah Beirne, 23, whose mother Brenda Hyland Beirne was the 1987 Rose of Tralee, will now take Aoife’s place.
‘It was a really unlucky freak accident. Two months ago I just stubbed the toe and it broke,’ she revealed to the Irish Mail on Sunday. ‘I think that when I started into rehearsals it didn’t respond well to the pressure. It re-broke under the strain of dancing,’ she said.
The model said that during her first practice session with her partner she suffered pain shooting through her foot.
‘It is just so heartbreaking because I was so excited to be on the show and the dream is shattered now,’ she said. The Tipperary native, who lives in New York, said that to continue wouldn’t have been fair to the producers or her partner, as she wasn’t able to give 100%.
Aoife said she is aware some people may think a fractured toe is a minor injury, but she was mindful of not doing permanent damage to her body.
‘What is hard is I have become part of the DWTS family and to have to say goodbye, before I got to show them what I’ve got, is disappointing,’ she said.
Because the pairing of the professional dancers with the stars is such a big part of the show, Aoife can’t say who her partner was.
‘But he was hugely supportive.
‘Everyone was, to be honest,’ she said.
‘It was heartbreaking as I was so excited’