Torvill & Dean's Friendship Stronger Than Olympic Gold

And then a week later she said, are you going to continue skating? And we were a bit superstitious and so we thought we said, well, we won't commit to it.

Yet, give it another week, another week, and another week, and after a few months, so you've got.

And to be honest, I've never agreed to skat with her yet neither.

Hello and welcome to separate bathrooms. We would like to acknowledge the Gadigle people of the Eora nation, the traditional custodians of this land, and pay our respects to the elders, both past and present.

High Street hut.

Hello, I'm Camdado.

You excited.

I'm very very excited.

Why.

Well, we've said this before, we can say it, we can say it, we can say it again. This job that we do in entertainment, it's pretty awesome. We get to do some wonderful things. We meet amazing people, and we've had some unique experiences along the way. Today is one of them. We're all in for something really special. Ice skating legends Jane Torvell and Christopher Dean are with us in the studio.

In years I.

Know it was at the Sarajevo Winter Olympics that they made history, completing their gold medal winning performance to Ravel's Ballero at the nineteen eighty four Winter Olympics. This was an iconic, heart stopping performance which had a UK television audience of twenty four million and an estimated worldwide audience of hundreds of millions of viewers on the edge of their seats. I was one of them. Oh my god,

So after hanging up their skates since several years out of the public eye, they once again became household names, becoming head judges on Dancing on Ice for sixteen series. They've had streets named after them, created documentaries and chased skating on wild ice for filming, and they're now on their final tour. Our Last Dance. Australia is a special place for Tauval and Dean. With their first professional show being produced back in the.

Eighties, they've shared a remarkable fifty year partnership. Let's get to know them better and we'll hear about what they have planned for us Ozzie's in twenty twenty five. Please welcome the incredible Jane and Christober known around the world as Tauville and Dean.

Guys, welcome to the massroom.

Also on the production, they will just call us T and D T ANDD.

I like that. That makes it easier.

We'll do that.

Well.

Congratulations on what has been and actually really continues to be an incredible career. Our last dance it says it all. Of course, how are you feeling about the impending retirement, I mean of that particular world for you.

It's kind of weird to think that this time next year we will have been retired already, because we're coming out to Australia in June of next year. Yeah, and after that we're done't we That's it?

We may stay who knows, stay here, finish the tour and just stay.

The will wrap you up and keep you here very easily, I have no doubt about that.

Will you keep skating?

Is it something you enjoyed doing?

No?

I choreograph a lot for all skaters, so that may be in my future. But having said that, from our point of view from skating on a regular basis, because we're always scheduling ourselves for the next event, and right now, we're obviously in the throes of getting ready for the tour, which is exciting. We're really excited about what the tour is going to be, and we're excited about going out

We were fifteen, Well, we knew each other when we were ten years old.

Yeah, we started skating together when we were fifteen years old, and we've just about spoken to each other every day since then.

So I don't think that will change.

I mean, that's an incredible partnership, Like obviously you've I mean that outlasted most marriages. I mean, that's like a true that's a childhood friendship that you've managed to maintain in such a beautiful way. Why do you think that is? What is it about each of you that's you've been able to maintain it for this long?

Well, obviously, you know the skating as all has always been our passion. Yeah, and you know, we both have the same feelings about skating, and we're always we went through all the competitive years up till eighty four, but then beyond that we were excited to continue to skate and be creative. As Chris said, we formed our own skating company down here in Australia and there were no restrictions. There were no rules of competition or anything. So it

Yeah, I think we transitioned from sports people to entertainers, and then we went into the area of working with artists like Grag Murphy from Sydney and then Yo Yomar, famous cellists. So we've just done so many different things. But it's because of that one four minute routine back in nineteen eighty four that gathers this longevity.

It's incredible, It is incredible. I do want to ask you about the mindset change from moving from sports people to entertainers, what what, But there are other things I want to cover before that.

We want to get just.

Go back to when you were kids. What was do you remember your first impressions of each other.

I just remember seeing Chris at the rink before we skatered together, and amongst friends of mine, I called him the Blonde Prince because he had really his blonde now, but it was like really white blonde hair as a youngster. And I said, oh, the blonde prince is here again on top that.

If the shoe fits right, he's got away that the princess bride was that that wasn't a thing yet, was it the princess bride?

Because I could see why you would be like a Westley you know right, you guys are princess butter Cup and Wesley right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Was it immediate? The chemistry on ice when you when you start you started dancing at fifteen and sixteen? Is that correct?

Together?

Well?

I I was always dancing and Jeane had been in another casual figure skating called pair skating. So at the Nottingham ice rink where we both started skating, she was the Queen Bee because she was a champion.

I was a British champione quite young, mainly because there weren't many pair skating couples.

There's only two of.

Us, there was only two in that national cham we were.

But then her partner thought that going off to London was the place to be, so he left you. And then the partner that I had had the same impression that she wanted to go to London and the big smoke and make it big down there. So we were without partners, and then the coach at the time just suggested that we try out. And we were fifteen years old and quite naive. You know, back in those days, there's no social media or anything like that, so you were still a bit naive of yeah, fifteen years and

So is that the rats got the skatee scor and chasing them off the ice. Anyway, she put us together, and she put us in.

A dance holder waltz hold, and to begin with, we were sort of like really distanced apart, but then she like squeezed us together, so our hips were against each other and that was kind of awkward for us, and we were like looking around, and then she said, I've just got to get something from a dressing room. So she scooted off the ice and left us there, and we had we didn't move.

We didn't move, We didn't say anything.

We were just sort of searching around with our eyes left in the middle of the eyes at six o'clock in the morning, and finally she came back out about five minutes later and said, well, you've passed your first test.

You're still here.

The idea is that when you're a dance couple, you dance as close together as you can and that creates a better line and everything. So that's the reason she pushed our hips together because a lot you quite often couples that are starting out dancing, they do tend to do that.

So you could drive a bus between. Yeah, so they.

Want you close together, which was a good lesson right from the beginning.

So you fit, We fit it.

And then a week later she said, are you going to continue skating?

And we didn't want to. We were a bit.

Superstitious, and so we thought we said, well, we won't commit to it yet, give it another week, another week, and another week, and after a few months, so we're not sure. And to be honest, I've never agreed to skate with her yet, neither.

About it.

Actually you have because you set up this last two weeks, so you're kind of going, Okay, i'll skate with you.

Well, I'll give it just a few more months.

Yeah, I don't think that you're those partners that left you and went to London and out sort of they're probably a kicking themselves, but they're probably dining out on that story going. I used to skate with her when I was letting.

I got her ready for him something like that.

It's strange, isn't it. That sliding door moments, aren't they left and right? Those decisions and so much fate in your life, but so true, and then there's some decisions that you make they're just the right one.

Yep?

Was there?

Was there someone that inspired you both to skate? Was there found other family members that were skaters?

No, it was just when I was in primary school when I was about eight nine years old. The teacher at the time, because we're lucky, we lived in a city in Nottingham that had an ice RM. I think

That, right, had.

Answers and she was, well, she certainly ate those words.

Yeah, you know, I'm thinking Nottingham was not a mecca for ice skating.

Well, you was surprised because at the time when we were skating, there weren't that many rinks around the country, the like eight or nine rinks and not even just happened to be one of them. And it had been since the war or just before the war, i think, And we had a hockey team that was quite popular called the Panthers, and so yeah, it had it had

So all the all the dance music that was genericly, yeah, it was in a dance interval as they call it. So all the waltzes and fox strots and everything. It was all played live.

Before when we used to take tests, proficiency tests, and you'd hear the metronome first, then the music would come in.

And here we go home. Excuse. Really it was when you think back of those days.

All the ice swings had organs. That was that was how you got the music.

Fabulous.

It's funny that I like in America at the baseball like the World Series us on at the moment and it's that whole seventh inning stretch, it's still the organ going on, and the same in the lot of the basketball arenas across America as well. It's the organ get some more pumped up.

Yeah, when I grew doing ballet, when I was a little girl, we had a we had a missus such I remember she was a hunchback and she.

Sat in a posture.

Yeah really like a real, real severe hump. But she was so lovely and she would just smile at all the little girls forest which I forgot about that. But it was so delightful to have live music in a way. You know, it's all hit the record or hit the iPhone, isn't it absolutely play it out? You were you. I know obviously famously you were a policeman while you were skating at the same time. Were you did you also were you full time skater? Did you have a part time job as not a.

Full time job an insurance company based in the center of Nottingham.

We were true amateurs at the time because you couldn't earn any money from sponsorship sponsorship in a way as an amateur, so we had to have and also we couldn't afford not to. Our parents couldn't afford to pay for us, so we still had to work. And outside of work we then fitted the skating in, which was difficult more for Jane because when eventually, when I was a policeman, I had shift work.

It could be.

From six to two, two till ten midnight till eight the next morning, so we fitted skating in around that and Jane had.

Nine till five.

So whenever I was available, then Jane would have to come to the rink. So you were a zombie in the office sometimes, yeah, definitely, and I was too. But after a shift, you know, take off one uniform and then put your skates on them.

Back throws the skating clothes. That was amazing.

I was always.

Thinking watching the Olympics, and I've always been a fan. I've got to say of the outfits that that the skaters or people where when you get a chance to to do the free skate, like you do your classical ones that you have to do, and then you do your free skates or whatever you want to do. Who designed those for you?

Guys?

Did you work on those together or is that folks?

Because we had a professional designer, he just happened to be involved with skating.

He was one of the skating He was a designer as well.

But judges don't get paid, so it's like the amateur skaters, so they have a proper job as well.

Yeah, I mean we used to have people that made missus mine was you see how old we.

Now?

We had wrong gone at once. These guys, that's what they did. Costumes, costumers McGill.

It might come by the end.

Of anyway, she's this lady just did amazing work, but eventually she started losing a sight came.

Yeah, it was sort of a bit feel the way around.

But we have a story about the costumes because we wanted for Ballero they arm braid.

Yes, I was going to say, do you remember what you wore, but it was black with purple like the purple you weren't today.

Almost it was like an orchid, that was thing.

It was sort of deep rich purple that got lighter and then there was these little gold epplets that we had sort of the center of the orchid.

But it were we wanted it to have sort of a.

Grecian feel at the same time, but the material that we we had to go and source the material.

So we'd go down Berwick Street and.

Go to London for the day from Nottingham because it was a big outing to go and get.

So you'd go and source the material. How much do you want so? And then they cut the designs and fit it and start to shape it. But then when my top was done, it was in the downstairs loo of the costume designers because they every sort of two hours or so they'd lift it up an inch.

It was die.

I love that it was. At At one point are they in a museum now?

The notting Mice Arena, which is on the site of the original notting Ice.

Rink, is a museum now.

It's a huge building now and they've got a museum part of it and They've got several of our costumes, including.

And then just outside the ice rink it's called Blu Square. Really.

Yeah, we have a tram named after us as well. Tram James says. I'm the back end of the tram.

We get very excited actually, and my kids do it too, Like in Nottingham if we if we're there together, if the tram goes by, is it yours? Mom? Is it yours? Sometimes? I found myself in a restaurant in Nottingham with the kids once and I was sitting there and the tram went by and I went, it's the trap. I was like, I was kind of doing it for them.

Really, Are you guys kind of like uncles and ardies to your kids to you know, it's in America, are they?

Yeah?

They were, because your kids are in America and so on.

Yeh, you know what kids are like now, they're all about themselves.

Did they go Did any of the kids take up I'm skating nothing, but they've been. I mean, my kids go. They put seasonal rinks up because I don't live close to an ice rink where I live in the UK, and they put seasonal rinks up at Christmas time and almost every year they've they've gone and now they go on their own because they're older, don't go with mum, And I'm quite happy about that.

Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.

But also we didn't want to force the kids skating and then be in the rink for the less part of our life.

Either.

They were successful, that's.

True, because it's a that is a full time job when you get in the levels that you were skating at. So of course we have to touch on that. We have to the most famous we have to I mean, but it's not only the most famous ice dancing performance. I feel like it's just there's so much iconicness, if that's a word around it, because they they almost like bring it out almost every Olympics. They use that as footage.

There's a whole process when we started as kids to where we got to, and just from the music side, you know that our mentality is we got better. We wanted everything to get better as well. We always wanted to be doing the best we could, whether it was costumes, music, skating, we.

Took everything as wanting.

It to be at its best, and so musically as we progressed from the Macca Mabel that.

We used to do, which was.

An overture that we found that was perfect and it was a silent movie theme that we did.

But then we went to Barnum.

Because we wanted to do a circus theme and then we met Michael Crawford that helped us with performance and acting, and then he then introduced us to the musicians and the musicians agreed to give their time and record a bespoke again overture of they.

Used a different arrangement to their normal overture, so it fitted into the four minutes that we allowed.

Because skating used to be when it used to be two reel to reels a real to reel and you would raise the blade music and stick them together.

Nowadays computers and everything, it's amazing what you can do.

But when we got to Balero, obviously we couldn't go back from having the music specially played for us. That so Balero, we searched around for a blero that was four minutes long and clearly the rhythm one because it's sixteen to eighteen minutes long the caore orchestral piece. But we wanted the same effect from that small intimate start

So we started on our knees.

James blade touched the ice at four minutes ten seconds.

You can't technically skate until your blades on the ice.

Which which was white, I mean the beginning een.

Yeah, it's so innovative. We've never seen anything like that before. And it came out of necessity.

Ah, I mean again, and you talked about fate earlier on, but like that, just that's that's small little.

Well it worked just because as Chris said, we wanted to start small and intimate, and because we had to be on our knees and close together, it worked for the storyline anyway.

Yeah, is that something like Michael Crawford taught you or said, if you want to draw an audience and start small like that?

So your really well the music suggested that.

But he was very performance oriented, you know, he's very animated, and he spoke to you and when it was present and when he was talking about Barnum and some of the tricks he told us some of the tricks that they did on stage.

Yes, there's one where you wrap your legs around and going between your legs and on the other.

Side that they did on the stage, and the effect of mid juggling and stuff like that, which we then were able to incorporate into the routine. But yeah, it was all about projection.

Yeah, he said if you don't if you don't believe it, like if if you don't believe you're juggling, the audience.

Went for sure, and it was a great advice for us moving forward. Is he in the audience in Sara Jovo when you dance?

No, No, we worked with Michael the previous year when we were doing.

Three. But he came to the performance there who came.

Up with that finale, that final fling in that bollo dance, the sliding that when you're through there.

Yeah, well there's there's two parts to the Olympics. We did something called the passa doble.

Passa doug that's the one I'm thinking, that's the one that you think. That's what I'm thinking.

Lying on the floor for both times, Yeah, burst around a bit.

We looked at matadors, Yeah, looked at because in a Pasadobian actual fact that the lady is the cape in the ballroom.

Yeah, and so.

If you watch what we did, she was always draped around me like a caper. I was holding her as if she was the cape, and it's always sort of that sweeping gesture to the ball at the end where you just lay down the cape.

That's it again.

We had the same costume designer who came up with that great idea of the big sleeves that made.

Me look like a cape.

It was kind of weird because most of the dance I was like that, so I was cape.

Yeah you're a good looking caper.

Did you ever just want to skate on your own at that top level or was it.

My step mother and father they used to do social dancing. They go out and social dance, and right from the beginning they encouraged me to do dancing. And when I first started, I just wanted to speed around the rink as fast as I could, and they'd be saying, don't become don't become a speed skater or a hockey skate, think about dancing, and so I went straight into the dance.

I do remember them.

When I think the first time I got a pair of skates for Christmas, and I lived out in the countryside and we I couldn't just get into an ice rink. So for the first two weeks I walked around the house in my skates. I just wanted to skate, dying to skate, and eventually, when when I got to the ice rink, I launched onto the ice and I think I must have fallen over in excess of two hundred times.

You come to the end of the performance, crowd goes wild. Did you know in that moment you clinched the goal, did you have that sense?

Well, you know, it was ours to lose in the first place before we started, so there was a lot of pressure in.

That we were champions the previous three, right, yeah, So the Olympics is.

The end of the christo Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. So when we'd finished, we just wanted to skate well because we'd done so many rehearsals in training, we'd run through the whole thing. We'd run through the whole thing during the Olympics when we had our practice sessions, and we thought, if we don't skate this well, it will be so unlucky, yeah, and unfortunate, and we felt that we couldn't have skated it any better for us. There weren't any mistakes or anything, so just that in

It's one of those routines though that it can be.

We were in a bubble, and so we were just performing it. But when we watched it back, the.

Room was silent, which was great. It wasn't one of those performances where everywhere you do.

A trick and the clap. We didn't want that anyway.

Did we know? We wanted to be engaging. People were withers as we were skating and sort of threw it away before.

But I was saying when you fit together, but in that in when you two danced together, there was such a synergy between you both that there was no It was like we were in our bubble watching it and to make any noise or that was like no, no, shut up, stop clapping, just watching.

In a way, yeah, free together. We felt like people were watching something very private, absolutely a moment.

How did you stay grounded through that period?

I'll tell your mom after your first won the World champions.

Oh yeah, when I came back from first World Championships in nineteen eighty one. My parents I grew up working class background. My parents, you know, they worked their whole lives and everything. Eventually ran a news agent shop, which for them was a big deal because it was a business.

You know.

Anyway, I came back from the World Championships, and I said, oh, Mom, we want this. She obviously knew we want. I said, Mom's great, we want She said, well, yeah, well there's always someone better than you, though. Oh I went, well, not in this moment.

They're always grounded.

I'll do it. And then I kind of thought about it after, because well, yeah, she's right, because the you know, for someone coming up.

I mean, it's that working class thing that also if you'd have when you used to borrow some money for you from your mom for like a five or ten pounds or something, right note and told you this is how much you owe me.

Yeah, oh yeah. I also had to pay everything, and if I if I snuck into the sweet shop and took a few sweets out of the jaw, I had to put money in the till because it had to balance.

Did you ever have to pay back for the secondhand pair of skates that she bought you?

No, I didn't know. I got away with that. Yeah, I got away with that one.

You've been known for your creativity, obviously and pushing the boundaries in ice dancing. Do you remember the was there ever a crazy, wild, unconventional idea or performance that you actually never got to perform. Was there something that you wanted to, like, let's do a trampoline in the middle of the eyes.

I don't think so. I think we've had crazy ideas and we've managed to make them pull them artwork.

One of the rewarding things that we did we made a documentary and we shut it in Alaska.

Yes, I wanted to ask you about.

Because most of our time on the ice it's in a building.

And it's manufacturing contained.

You know, it's frozen pipes that are underlane with underlining under the ice, with free arm going through it and spray over it and it creates ice.

Plus you got a fence around the outside the barrier.

And but we went to Alaska and we skated the ballero on a lake, open natural lake, and the backdrop wasn't the rink, it wasn't the mountains a video screen. It was the mountains and all the beautiful pine trees and it was natural and for and there was nobody there. There was not an audience. There was a camera, and that was so rewarding to be able to it.

Was just adding that because we always say that when you skate you've got this sense of freedom and flying almost and have been able to do it outdoors without any barriers and restrictions. It was I don't know. It's quite an emotional feeling because it's something we never thought we'd be able to.

Also, we felt quite small, yeah, because it specs and the vastness of the lake, because.

There was a drone as well, so you could see from the top. You know how small we were compared to the lake and everything.

So's I wish I could remember his name. There's someone I follow on Instagram. He he's Canadian and he was he never won a medal or anything in the Olympics, but he was he was a professional or is a professional skater. But what he does all of his Instagram post is him ice skating doing the wild large.

Yes, he's doing our show.

Was watching you to see if you had any I have to watch it like makes me want to cry because it's the freedom he has when he skates and you're just the way that camera follows him around and.

It's just I think I've sent you a couple of his posts. They are just it's just magic.

We've never met him, have we You've spoken to him, I think now, But that's how Chris came across him from the past. Yeah.

Yeah, we're excited with some of the cast that.

Well exactly does the back he just he injured his knee a little bit, that's right. But apparently it was the hottest summer in Alaska? Was that right when you were searching for that, I.

Exactly, yeah, we were.

I mean it had this sort of undercurrent talking about climate change as well, and we flew.

Up onto the glaciers.

And walked around. But you could see how much it was declining from where it used to be and what it was where it was. Then, Yeah, you know, mice ice may be gone before we know it.

Well, the first lake that they had identified for is the crew and everything. When we got to it, it wasn't going to be frozen enough. You knows so many inches they need. And obviously we.

Did find health and safety the free what was the terminology that.

Skating.

We had these special.

Blazes that were like this long, and we're on one lake and we just could go for miles.

And never stopped, never go around the corner.

And then we did something unique as well that Jane I. They we cut a hole and I went in in a dry suit scuper diving.

Jane skated above me.

Skated over the top of it. Essentially.

Oh, I like doing some risky things.

Chris the dare Devil.

I would have preferred to be you.

Yeah, tell me. Did the dry I mean obviously you stayed dry, but you still get really cold though, don't you.

You did it?

We was yeah, I mean they had a little tent and they had a heater in it, but yeah, it was cold.

Well, when we did the actual skate, the final skate, we had a tent because it's in the middle of nowhere, so there's no dressing room or anything. We had a tent with heaters in and we literally we did our warming up, went back into the tent, run back house again and then did the performance and several times, yeah, several times. But it was, you know, having that tent there to warm up because it was I don't know minus whatever it was, but it was very, very cold.

Yeah, but it was just an experience, yeah something and outside the boundary too, is incredible. It just as you're talking about that remind me of that movie Papillon with Dustin Hoffman and Steve McQueen and Steve McQueen's in the prison and he can only work walk five steps before he hits the wall, and then when he finally gets out of his prison cell, he walks six and falls over.

Yeah, he does six steps and.

It's like wow, So here you guys are outside of the dimensions of what you're used to be doing.

You're in the open, open terrain. Amazing.

Must have been very liberating.

And another funny story from that when we were going to Fairfax. So we were in Anchorage and we were going up to Fairfax on the train and I think it was like a ten hour trainer.

Yeah, it's a famous train journey that people.

That connect the two And on the way we were looking.

We were thinking that we see ice on the way, and the conductor said, well, just stop.

The train just got off and.

We shoved some ice out of the way and we did a little skate and all the passengers that he was watching, and then we got back on and carried on.

It's one of those trains where people.

That live off grid, off gridge was just coming.

Wave down and the train will stop and they get on.

There's no actual station really to the end.

It's really.

Imagine it being imagine being a passenger on that trying that.

Who are those two idiots?

A little skating?

You did another documentary I wanted to ask you about ice rink on the Estate. Can you tell us a little bit about that one as well?

That was quite special that it was working with underprivileged children in Nottingham, Nottingham called the Saint Anne's Area, which was actually quite close to the rink, and it was about giving opportunity for kids that would never have the opportunity to have the money on go skating, et cetera. So we worked with them and they couldn't skate or anything, and we took them to the rink and we taught

In an outdoor ring. Wasn't it on the estate.

But it's quite interesting that the young kids from this state were quite feral wet.

I don't know how many. The first day came and there was certain adults that brought them along and then we said, right, so rehearsal tomorrow is at X time, ten o'clock in the morning, whatever it was, and only half of them turn up there. And then the next day you get a different half, and so you don't

They overcome it by the end, and we did do a show.

Yeah, and it was one of those things. Actually on the dress rehearsal and I think it was was it in November time it teamed down.

Oh that's right, yeah, it ruins then oh.

No, But then the day of the actual performance, it was.

Fine, put the zamboni back on it.

But I wondered what I wondered. I mean, that's such a gift for those kids to have had the experience of being both with you and like sort of feeling like they mattered for that time, you know, and.

They were given their own skates as well. We just thought, you know, if if two of them carry on skating, or you know, even if they didn't enjoy it. They think, well, skating is not for me, but maybe I'll try this.

Yeah, exactly.

It's all about the experience.

The experience, and we you know, we took some of the kids because we had to go and find money for it, so we went around to local businesses, cap in hand kind of thing we had made. The kids were the ones that were asking for the support. So it showed another side of things of if you determined to do something, you can make something happen.

Yeah, yeap action.

Question.

We all go through crises of confidence and you guys.

Were held up on a pedestal.

How would you deal with those moments during your career and.

Subsequently, well, I think one of the times you had an injury when we were competing, when we were competing and as a moment a crisis and that we were generally, each year you do the European Championships, which is a precursor to the World Championships because most of the best skaters are European and Russian. And this was nineteen eighty three, and nineteen eighty three was the pre year before the Pics, and so nineteen eighty three was a big year, so

Yeah, we were training the barn and routine and we fell and I ended up fracturing my shoulder and so we literally had to pull out the European Championships. And for us, that's the first time we'd had to miss a big competition. We've done all our British Championships, European World and as Chris said, it was the year before the Olympic year.

So it was letting up competitors.

In someone else was going to win that Europeans. It wasn't going to be us for sure.

So coming back from that, we had about seven or eight weeks before the World Championships and so we just you know, we had to get over the year. The injury better over night as a fracture, so we had to come to turn with that, and then when it was time to get back on the ice, the process of getting back was emotional difficult, but as a team, I think you have to come together and work together

Weeks later to say to everybody, we're still here.

We're still had lots of tape on my shoulder blade, but we always made sure it was hidden, so whenever the doctor did it, it was in private, like in my room or something, not in the dressing room, in the changing room. So it was yeah, because a shoulder injury like that, if you fractually shoulder blade, you can't put it in plaster, you can't do anything. It just has to heal, and there's not a lot of blood

I think that.

I think those moments of crisis actually makes you even more determined and stronger sure to want to be if you've got the passion and the desire.

I think it's so brave as well. I mean, particularly for you, Jane, you know, the amount that you're being thrown about, tossed about, I mean, I know it takes bravery to do that as well for the man you've got like literally you know, the woman's hands, you know, life in the hands.

Chris dropped her and she broke her shoulder. That's what it's just been talking about the last minutes.

Said that Jane has broken my nose on top of him a few times, laid through my hand.

Yeah, I've squashed the disc So I interrupted your No.

I was just saying, it's like there's so much bravery that has to be involved. And then to get back on the ice after, you know, and do that same routine again when when they.

Hurts, when you fall on ice and if you're going it's speed that you two are.

Yeah, yeah, how would you both like to be remembered in the world of figure skating.

We'll just be remembered that.

Yeah, yeah, just being you know, like you said, when you think of figure skating, certainly here in Australia, most people.

Go oh Tovel. Indeed they do.

And so it's the memory of yeah, yeah, that's sort of our legacy.

Yeah, and that the memory has not dimmed as well, Like it's just yeah, it's very, very vivid for all of us who got to see it, and you know, and in ensuing years as well.

So I I brought this up the other day on the golf course with my mates. I said, we're interviewing Tauvel and Dean on our podcast next week. Anyone got questions. I can't ask you any of the questions, but they all were like, that's amazing, real, that was so good. Can you just tell us what's happening in twenty twenty five, What tells us a bit more about the tour and what we can expect.

Well, we want to celebrate our career and this is our last dance, so we want to tell the story that you know, about our life and how we got to where we are, starting from you know, as kids, when we started out winning our first European championships with Macca Mabel, which was quite a departure from the routines we've been doing before and the progression there, and because we've got a company of amazing professional skaters with us.

Big everybody share of production, number of different and that comes our number. So it's sort of a down memory lane for us. And there'll be audio visual stuff, will be chatting on the ice as well as skating, So it's an evening were than our story, but we're being accompanied by some amazing skaters, yes, clearly.

And so many of your shows are already sold out. I know there are tickets available to some, but already yeah, you know that's how much we love you are already like getting tickets to this one.

And just okay, so how old were you in about and I need to know the details. In nineteen eighty four you're in your twenty twenties.

Yeah, okay, so we do the math.

Now I'm not doing the math, but I'm just going we've got you guys past physically right, You've got what supple ones are you taking? What do you do to stay supple and strong?

You know you just have to keep working. We're doing it. You know, we're in the gym, keep skating.

You watch what you eat, and I think it's the continuity that we just have kept skating. Okay, we're in the ice rink all the time. You know, cold ice rinks are not so.

Because you look amazing. The spent a long time inside.

This is you know. Separate Bathrooms is a relationship podcast, and we love to ask just a question to end the show with. Could you describe each other in one word?

Oh, silence, hello, darkness. Male. I don't know about one word, but three, I've got three. Okay, my best friend.

I knew he was going to say that that was mine, that was going to be mine.

So beautiful, Oh my gosh, that is just gorgeous. Thank you so much for your time. We just wish you all the best with the tour. I know it's going to be amazing. But it's just been a real honor to get to speak with you by thank.

You lovely speaking with you too to thank you. That was great.

I know, I know they've left the bathroom and we both look at each other and hang, wow, I mean.

We've spoken to some pretty I mean we've spoken to many, many wonderful people and couples. I think they're the biggest celebrities. I would call them celebrities that we've ever spoken to. But in a way that just is so interwoven into the fabric of my childhood. And I mean, you know how much. I mean, you love the Olympics, and I love the Olympics too, And the ice dancing is always one of my favorite things to watch. I can't remember a single other routine any other couple have ever done.

Yeah, Well, to me, they blended the ballero one blended into the passa double one of the cape and but that's my memory going, that's a blend. But you're right, I don't remember any other ice performance other than I'm going to say those two because they both sort of they're both so iconic and he was well he and he still is. He's such a wonderful man and just I mean, tell listen to what you said just before about him when they were.

So he's just such a very warm person. I mean, they're both so lovely. Yeah, it just has a real warmth of care.

Yeah, and I was thinking about that, and you said that.

That here he is.

He's supported her and lifted her up and kept her safe all that time, like traveling at that speed and doing all those things in the trust that she had to place in him. Bravery She had totally totally brave, and that she had to be on point as well, because if she wasn't at the place where she was meant to be, she'd be on her ass, you know. And I imagine that happened a lot in your practice.

But she broke his nose apparently, as she said.

We didn't quite get into how she broke his You dropped me your bustard. But no, they were just so they're just so lovely and as you say, they are, they're icons of a time that they they seared into many of our memories because it was so innovative and beautiful. And I say that again, how they fit and how they just went around and they just fit together and move together. It was like that was art.

Yeah, it was movable art. There you go, there you go. Well, we're gushing clearly. Yeah, So we so hope you loved the episode as much as we did. Remember, you can get your tickets for the tour. Our last dance.

Yeah, go see that June twenty twenty.

It'll heat.

It'll be the winter of twenty twenty five here in Australia, heating up winter with Torvel and to D and D.

You won't get to see them again. So this is it.

H they're not doing Elton John, they're not doing they're not doing a sting coming back, coming back Pharnsie, Well hopefully we'll see Farnsie coming back then.

Yeah.

Yeah, thanks for listening, Thanks for being with us.

Bye,