Dancing On Ice's Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean make shock announcement over future

Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean have announced a huge change to the Dancing on Ice format ahead of the 2025 series as they prepare to return to the ITV show's judging panel

Dancing on Ice’s Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean will skate for the final time on live TV in the show’s upcoming series, with the Olympic champions saying they are ‘too old’ to perform.

The British ice dancers won 16 gold medallists during their competitive skating careers at World, European and British Figure Skating Championships until retiring in 1998.

They took home gold at the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Olympics, where their performance to Maurice Ravel’s Bolero became one of the most-watched events in British TV history with 24 million viewers. While the skating legends have performed together on Dancing on Ice since the show began in 2006, Torvill and Dean are hanging up their skates for good after this year.

“This will be our last live skate - here on Dancing on Ice,” Christopher said. “We’re doing our last tour this year as well so once we’ve finished our last skate on tour, we won’t be performing again. There are lots of endings.”

The 66-year-old added that he is ready to bring his skating chapter with Jayne, 67, to an end after over five decades on the ice. “We’ve been doing it a long time and people our age shouldn’t be doing it now,” he said. “So we’re just happy that we can still do it.”

The pair will no longer perform on Dancing on Ice, however they will continue in their roles as judges alongside Diversity’s Ashley Banjo and former Strictly Come Dancing professional Oti Mabuse. “Dancing on Ice feels like our baby because we were approached by ITV in the early days and we came up with this format together of how it might work,” Jayne said. “We didn’t know much about TV but they didn’t know how skating works so together, the programme developed and it’s great that we were there from the beginning.”

Christopher revealed that after giving up skating, he plans to follow in the footsteps of David Beckham with a surprising new hobby. “I’ve taken up beekeeping. It sounds like a good thing to do,” he said. “It just sounds so idyllic. It’s outdoors, it’s gentle.”

Hosted by Holly Willoughby and Stephen Mulhern, Dancing on Ice’s new series sees the likes of EastEnders’ Charlie Brooks, footballer Anton Ferdinand, The Traitors’ Mollie Pearce, TV presenter Michaela Strachan and Olympic rower Steve Redgrave lace up their skates. Jayne and Christopher revealed that the skating standard is “quite high” this series - however, Coronation Street star Sam Aston is one to watch in the competition. “Sam has taken to it quite naturally,” Chris said of the Chesney actor.

Jayne added: “I was impressed by Anton as well. I like his attitude because of his football background.”

Dancing on Ice returns on Sunday at 6:30pm on ITV1, ITVX, STV and STV Player.