BMX ACE KYE
OLYMPIAN Kye Whyte has the fitness, focus, strength and stamina to meet the punishing demands of Dancing On Ice. Just one thing, according to the celebrity judges, is coming between him and higher scores – his facial expressions. To the BMX bullet nicknamed the Prince of Peckham, performing well means pumping pedals faster than almost anyone on the planet.
There are no points for how your face looks in BMX, so pulling a yearning expression for a romantic number is alien to the young champion.
Kye said: “When I’m really concentrating or lifting heavy weights, I blow my cheeks out. In my first Dancing On Ice performance, it was all puffer cheeks and I only smiled at the end.
“When I watched it back I said, ‘Oh my God, what’s my face doing?’
“I’m always being told off and asked, ‘Can you change your face and smile?’.
“But that’s just my face. And I’m finding it very, very hard. The judges still tell me off every performance. Sometimes it’s cringey but I understand it more now and I’m getting better.”
The 22-year-old and his professional partner Tippy Packard, 32, have been in the ITV competition’s skate-off for the past two weeks. They were most recently saved at the expense of Rachel Stevens and Love Island’s Liberty Poole.
And while he’s used to winning purely on performance rather than popularity, Kye isn’t getting his melons in a twist about Bez, the Happy Mondays dancer whose scores from the judges leave him on a downer before the public’s votes send him high again.
Kye said: “Bez isn’t the best in the competition but he’s improved so much.
“I respect him for putting the skates on because I find the skating hard and dislocated my knee but, because of his age, his body is way more fragile than mine so I really do respect him.
“His scores are going up each week, he’s enjoying himself. The public vote shows how much he’s loved.”
Kye’s family have been cheering loudly for him in the audience and he was chuffed to bits when presenter Holly Willoughby enjoyed a long chat with his mum Tracey Hill before the first show.
Tracey, 48, was diagnosed with leukaemia a month after Kye won silver at the Tokyo Olympics – part of a Team GB medal haul that also included a gold for BMX rider Bethany Shriever.
Kye is drawing on all his mental training to deal with his mum’s illness with positivity. Hearing news of her diagnosis, when he was called to her hospital bed from the BMX training centre in Manchester in August, was difficult.
Kye said: “We were there, around Mum in hospital, when she told us she had leukaemia. And I thought, ‘This is the worst thing ever’. “I walked out a couple of times. “My sister Lasharn was crying and hugging Mum but I had to walk out for a while, not because I didn’t want to cry, but because I didn’t know how to handle it. I understand it more now. I read a lot about it and listened to the doctors. Mum can come out of this – she’s a fighter. But at first I thought, ‘That’s it. Mum’s not going to be here’.”
Tracey, a carer at a residential centre for young people, hears some straighttalking advice from her athlete son. “Mum’s very stubborn,” said Kye. “Sometimes she might say she doesn’t want to do a certain treatment and I say, ‘You’re going to get it done’.
“It’s the only option you have. Because you’re not going anywhere yet.’ I won’t