Amy: I’m gutted
Strictly return after chemo joy is dashed by foot injury
AMY Dowden has fractured her foot and blown her hopes of appearing on Strictly Come Dancing this year.
Last week the professional dancer, 33, celebrated her final round of treatment for stage three breast cancer.
Amy was unable to have a celebrity partner on Strictly this year following her diagnosis and subsequent treatment.
But she said she had planned to make an appearance on the dance floor.
However, her injury has put paid to her goal. Sharing a photo of herself in a boot, she wrote on Instagram: “Not the week I was hoping for since finishing chemo.
“Port out but unfortunately gained a boot for a fractured foot.
“Absolutely gutted and heartbroken as this means the plans for me to dance in the Strictly ballroom this year are no longer possible.
“This is what has kept me going the past few months – 2023 is certainly not my year. Roll on 2024, I say!”
The Caerphilly-born dancer, who joined Strictly in 2017, announced her diagnosis in May after finding a lump in April, the day before going to the Maldives on her honeymoon with fellow dancer Ben Jones.
In October, the Strictly star made a surprise appearance on the BBC One show, emerging from behind a golden fringe wall, sporting a shaved head, to read the show’s voting details.
Later, in an episode of the spin-off It Takes Two, Amy said the support of her fellow dancers and staff on the show allowed her to feel “liberated” to not wear a wig. She also went without a wig when she appeared at the Daily Mirror’s Pride of Britain Awards and the Stand Up To Cancer live show.
Since her diagnosis and subsequent mastectomy and chemotherapy, the dancer has raised awareness of breast cancer and posted regular updates on her social media platforms. ■ Strictly Come Dancing is on tomorrow at 6.40pm, on BBC One.
THE Strictly pros have extra reason to want to waltz on to the floor this weekend as they’re returning to Blackpool, ballroom dancing’s spiritual home.
From the moment they decided to be dancers, they have wanted to be crowned champions there.
And some achieved that dream earlier than others – in fact, Lauren Oakley was still in the womb.
The 32-year-old says: “My mum kept her pregnancy from everyone during the competition at Blackpool Tower Ballroom because she thought it wouldn’t help her win.
“She then won the championships and announced her pregnancy to everyone that evening, and the next day her belly popped. It’s like I was waiting for her!
“It’s just a really special place, for me especially. My mum danced there, my cousin has danced there, it has been in the family for a while.
“I don’t remember ever spending an Easter not at Blackpool. We
My mum kept her pregnancy hidden from everyone in competition
would have an Easter egg hunt in the arcades there.”
Lauren, who joined Strictly last year, had her first dance on her own two feet in Blackpool aged seven.
She recalls: “I just got my first dance partner and I remember being taken aback by how amazing it was and how dancers from all over the world were there performing and competing. I was excited.
“I got more nervous, the older I got, but when I was young, it was just really exciting.” Fellow pro Nikita Kuzmin was a little too excited recalling his first time in Blackpool, admitting he had never been scared of any competition in his life before arriving in Lancashire.
The Ukrainian-Italian dancer, 25, says of making it to Blackpool to compete aged eight: “I was too nervous and it was too late for my parents to do anything about it because I was already on the dance floor doing my thing – the wrong thing at the wrong time!”
Kai Widdrington, 28, recalls that walking into the Blackpool ballroom “was like walking into another world of dancing, seeing all the guys dressed in tail suits and the girls in the beautiful ballroom dresses”.
He adds: “If you fall in love with dancing like I did, you fall in love with Blackpool. There are nothing but happy memories there.”
Kai was eight when he made his Tower debut but his favourite memory came a little later when he represented Great Britain at the Junior World Championships.
“We won the team match, where it was the top two Latin couples and the top two Ballroom couples competing against the other countries in the world. Britain hadn’t won it in 20 years or so and we managed to, so that was a big highlight,” he says.
Russian dancer Luba Mushtuk, 34, recalls how Tower Ballroom was revered as the pinnacle of ballroom success, saying: “Since I was a little girl, my teachers would say, ‘One day you will go to the Blackpool Tower’.” But the seaside city’s contribution to ballroom is best summed up by Italian Vito Coppola, 31, who did one of his first international contests there in 2008 and says: “Blackpool is the most important and best competition in the world.”
Kai adds: “This is where ballroom dancing was founded and created. It’s where all the people that were the pioneers took their first steps on the competition floor.
“They paved the way for the future generation. We’re very fortunate that we get to go back there every year.”
LAUREN OAKLEY ON HER MOTHER JACQUIE’S SECRET
If you fall in love with dancing, you fall in love with Blackpool
KAI WIDDRINGTON ON TOWER BALLROOM EFFECT