Former Olympic champion, Christopher Dean, has become the latest Dancing On Ice casualty.

The skating coach was practicing his new routine for this weeks show with partner, when the blade of her skate sliced his arm.

Christopher said: “The blood squirted out like a fountain. But I got patched up and went back on to the ice.”

A source told The Sun: “Paramedics were called and Chris got emergency treatment. It was a shock but he’s fine.”

They’ve enjoyed an incredibly successful career spanning several decades, won countless medals and even counted Princess Diana, Placido Domingo, Gene Kelly and Jack Nicholson amongst their fan base. So, when did Christopher Dean realise he and Jayne Torvill were such huge stars?

“When it became harder to go to Marks & Sparks and buy my socks,” he laughs.

And it’s that very British sense of modesty combined with their astonishing talent that has made Torvill and Dean arguably the best-loved and most well-known stars in their field.

Jayne and Chris were both born into working class Nottingham families: Jayne in 1957, Chris a year later. Jayne first took to the ice
on a school trip to the local skating rink aged eight. It all came fairly naturally and the next day she was back. Chris got his first pair of skates for Christmas aged ten, and after two weeks of stomping around on his mum’s linoleum, he was finally taken to the city to try them out on the ice.“It wasn’t an epiphany or anything,” he remembers.“I just started doing it and I kept on doing it.”
Having both discovered that they quite enjoyed skating Jayne and Chris became frequent visitors to the rink,both teaming up with a partner and taking lessons. Success came quickly, with Jayne becoming a British Senior Pairs Champion and Chris winning the British Junior Ice Dance competition.

It was through their skating teacher that Jayne and Chris were first paired up as potential dancing partners, at the age of 16 and 15 respectively, after both being ditched by their previous partners.“We got on well right away. I think it was because we’d both been dumped,” laughs Jayne. Read more & comment »