Dancing on ice - Champion of Champions & the Final

Well it’s all over. You watched in your millions. Over 11 million viewers for the final. Brilliant. The right couple won. Kyran and Mel deserved to win. Twice! Both routines in the last two weeks were fun, fast, packed with content and even saw Kyran dancing…

Clare and Andrei did strong numbers too but Clare does not have the skating strength of Kyran at this time. Andrei is determined though and he really wants to win – watch out for battle royale on the tour.

Duncan and Maria show excellent presentation. The champion of champion final though brought up some issues for me with their performance. Karen (Barber and myself used to do an exhibition – New Fangled Tango - it was easy, crowd pleasing and was a stock exhibition for us). I realise that this was coming to mind watching Duncan and Maria – I only gave them a 4.5 for the C of C event. Why? Well because what they did was an exhibition rather than a competition piece. What do I mean? Well competition is where you are pushing yourself, trying new elements, daring to take risks. This leads to you being scared in the process and either breakthroughs or stutters or complete disasters. It can look a little ragged on television (because you don't see the speed and doing things at speed makes it harder to co-ordinate lines). Duncan took it easy, looks very good on the TV, two feet on the ground going round the corner is smooth and he has wonderful presentation (but it's so easy for him). So I just ended up seeing very little content against the others who are competing hard and pushing themselves. Duncan can do so much more, he just needs to risk and step out of his comfort zone. Then he could challenge the leaders. I'd really like to see him do that on the tour. I think he acan do more than he thinks he can.

Bonnie was great and would have been right up there with Kyran had she not lost concentration. She was really enjoying herself and just lost the edge. Great shame. She had greatly improved her skating as well as maintaining those wonderful lifts with Matt.

In the C of C event Stefan tried difficult moves – I just think he needed another week. He’ll get into his stride on the tour. Gaynor and Daniel were a 6.0 for the relationship they can create on the ice – it’s beautiful to see but the fact Gaynor wasn’t skating consistently like this series competitors showed as her routine progressed. Still the quality of the realtionship and how that comes over is impressive.

A LITTLE CROSS...

I got cross in the show. Takes quite a lot to get me cross but, thinking back on it, a number of things linked together to push my buttons.

I’ve been getting fed up with my lack of involvement on the panel as the series progressed. Our brief as judges is that every time a couple skate we are to be ready with comments – fair enough.

Time and again I don’t get asked. I’ve been thinking – don’t worry it’s fine… But actually I think I was more frustrated than I realised. I hadn't realised this was simmering below the surface... and I was kidding myself.

I think this, added to the fact that in 6 couples for the C of C event I got asked for just one comment, primed the fuse…

Then on the back of my one comment Jason said I was absurd. To top it off I had no possibility of replying. Felt stuffed really.

There you go….. Wasn’t so much Jason – could have been anyone. Frustration just found a focus.

And - well I don't take kindly to name calling. I don't like agreesion and name calling with an arrogance at the best of times but people do what they do. Just caught me at a time when other things were kicking in... you may have seen me get a little steamed up! Ha... and they say it's only television.

Anyway it took me a while to settle down. I don’t think it’s fair that I was not able to answer an aside live on air. Did on Defrosted but the audience is very much lower so feel a bit done really. Not the greatest experience of my broadcasting career to date – hey ho….

Having fun with Stephen on Defrosted helped afterwards – he’s great to work with. Lovely pen from the Defrosted team – (thank you) - they’ve been great fun.

After show party was great meeting friends old and new – had to leave early 2am to Brighton…. I could have stayed.

Anyway see you on tour if you’re around… leaving Wednesday – I don’t have enough time to get everything I have to do finished before I leave! Arghh…. Too busy...

Love

Nicky