Who is Jayne Torvill?
Jayne Torvill is an English former ice dancer, best known for winning a gold medal at the Sarajevo Winter Olympics in 1984, along with her ice-skating partner, Christopher Dean. Jayne initially worked at an insurance company. However, ice skating had been her passion since childhood. She paired up with Christopher in 1975. In 1978, the pair won the British national championship and earned a sponsor. Soon, both of them left their day jobs and focused on a full-time career in ice skating. At the Sarajevo Winter Olympics in 1984, the pair won the gold medal and also secured a perfect 6.0 for artistic impression from each of the judges. In the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, the pair won a bronze. Following this, they participated in various dance tours and shows, including their own show, Ice Adventures. They retired from competitive ice skating in 1998 but reunited for a performance on the show Dancing on Ice in 2006. Jayne and Christopher have received several honors, such as the OBE and the MBE. Jayne now lives in East Sussex with her husband and two adopted children
Skating Career and Partnership with Christopher Dean
In 1971, when she was 14, Jayne Torvill and her ice-skating partner Michael Hutchenson became the British National Pairs champion.
Following this, she split from Michael and skated solo for a while. She was coached by trainers such as Betty Callaway and Janet Sawbridge.
In 1975, she teamed up with her new ice-skating partner, Christopher Dean. He was a police constable in Nottingham. Both of them were well-known ice skaters by then. Dean had already won a British junior ice-dance championship.
The duo won their first international ice-skating contest in St. Gervais in 1976. In 1978, the pair became British national champions and earned their first 6.0 for artistry. This was the first of their seven national championship wins.
Soon, the Nottingham City Council agreed to sponsor them. Following this, both of them quit their day jobs and started focusing on ice skating full-time. In 1981, the pair won the first of their four world championships and the first of their four European championships.
At the Sarajevo Winter Olympics in 1984, Jayne and Christopher amazed the audience with their free-dance version of Maurice Ravel’s Boléro. The performance helped them earn a gold medal and become the highest-scoring skating pair of all time for a single contest.
They also secured twelve perfect scores of 6.0 and six 5.9s. The score included a 6.0 for artistic impression from each of the nine judges.
With an audience of over 24 million people, the event was one of the most-watched sporting events in the history of British TV. Much later, in 2002, according to a Channel 4 poll in the U.K., the British public voted the performance as the eighth on the list of the 100 Greatest Sporting Moments.
Following their 1984 Olympic performance, both Jayne and Christopher became professional ice skaters. The duo earned the World Professional Ice Dance Championship title five times (1984–85, 1990, 1995–96).
According to the Olympic Committee rules back then, Jayne and Christopher were not eligible to participate in Olympics again, because of their “professional” status. However, in 1993, the International Skating Union declared a slight change in rules.
In 1994, the pair was thus allowed to participated in the Winter Olympics held in Lillehammer, Norway. The judges there, however, declared some of the duo’s moves illegal. Jayne and Christopher were thus penalized and had to settle for a bronze medal.
Following this, the pair was seen on various dance shows, some of them being their own tours. They also choreographed many shows. In 1998, the duo retired from competitive skating, after touring for the last time with their own skating show, Ice Adventures.
They were also seen in Stars on Ice, their last performance on the show being a dance set to Paul Simon's Still Crazy After All These Years. After a 7-year break, in January 2006, they were seen together again on the ITV show Dancing on Ice.
