Forty years ago, Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean gambled a shot at Olympic gold on a radical routine. It paid off handsomely, but their virtuoso performance is not a template for modern ice dancers.
Dean, 25, wore a stiff shirt, cravat, argyle jumper and pinstripe team blazer. Next to him, Torvill, 26, sported a fur-trimmed coat, matching hat, silk scarf and a shy smile. Not on display, but somewhere back in Nottingham, were their recently-awarded MBEs.
"We always had to be one step ahead with where our ideas were creatively," adds Torvill. "We tried to tell a story - so it had a meaning."On the rink, there was no escape from politics either; a schism ran through the ice. This, as far as they knew, would be their final shot on the greatest stage, as they were bound for the professional circuit, barring them from future Olympics under the rules of the time.
Torvil and Dean's free-dance routine in Sarajevo on 14 February 1984 started with them kneeling on the ice facing each other. Dean, during warm-up, would subtly rough up the ice in the required spot to avoid their knees, which gave far less traction than a sharpened blade, from sliding away under them.In the minutes in between, they had transported the Sarajevo crowd, and a UK television audience of 23 million to new heights.
Torvill, reacting to the observation that the pair seemed more closely attached than other pairs, simply replied with a look across at her partner and an enigmatic "yes". "Obviously there were countries and skaters who had been competing, poised for a medal, climbing up that tree who would feel put out."After a raft of poor imitations in the wake of Torvill and Dean's Bolero routine, the skating authorities had become stricter about music choices and banned pairs from starting routines kneeling or lying on the ice.
The lead the British pair held going into the final round had been whipped from under them. Torvill, arms still cradling a clutch of bouquets, trudged backstage crestfallen. They would end with only bronze.Torvill and Dean, with their coaches alongside them, watch their results come in for the final free dance section of the Lillehammer 1994 campaign
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