How Our Relationship Won Gold | Torvill & Dean

four minutes, but we have 10 minutes, 10c on each side, so it could be 350 or 410, we have 328, so you interpret, we interpret the rules, we look at them and it says well, when you start skating, we start on our knees and The sword de Jan played the ey very well after 18 seconds after 18 seconds at 4 minutes 10, so creatively you had to sit down and who came up with that idea, just start with your KNE, start with your knees. Yes, start from knees. I had seen something in a musical that had two couples in it. Carousel Carousel were on their knees and doing something similar so she said let's try it on the ice and that's what we did and we had.

Keep it going for 18 seconds so that when my sword hits the ice it starts the timer and technically it would run for 4 minutes and 10 seconds and we've always liked to play a piece of music with a narrative in our heads for us. It doesn't have to be a story, but it is a story because it gives us the intention of what we want to do and with Bolero it was a kind of Romeo and Juliet situation, we come from different families, we can't be together, but we can be together. together in death, so basically it was a trip in our heads to a volcano that then at the end we jumped into and lived together for eternity, submerged in ice at the end, this is good because, you know, it continues with David Gage's theme. is the partnership card One of the other defining elements is clear purpose and objectives, so when you start with bolero and you think you're getting the moves together, how did you see the Olympics what it was about for you?

To be honest, we don't have a great track record in this country of

gold

medals at the Winter Olympics, do we? So did we do the best we could? Was it a

gold

medal? Did you place in the top 10 or top three? I think because we had won our first world championship in 1981 and we were at that stage, on paper we could have gotten a bronze medal, but we won and we were a little surprised because we knew we wanted to continue until '84 and that we had to keep doing something. different every year to keep us on top with Bolero.

We did it. We knew we had to do something different every year, right? And what was unusual with Bolero was it was a piece of classical music and I think, in the past, because it's ice dancing, you always had something with a rhythm and we used Mac y mael, we used Barnum which had a lot of big melodies, but Bolero was something really different, but as soon as we knew we were going to use that music, we believed in it and I think that's part of the journey: you have to believe in what you're doing because if it won't show in your performance and also At the olympic games?

We had been to the World Championships three years before, so it was our Olympics that we were losing, expectations were high, so we and you know when you are the leaders. In your field you tend to wear this layer of champions and we always wanted to lead, we always wanted to be adventurous in what we were going to try to do and I think Bolero for us was a real and risky departure. In a way, wasn't it about taking this classical piece of music? A melody, no changes, that's continuous, um, but it's something that we felt was unique and different and would stand out, so can I ask you around?

You've offered two almost contradictory statements there and I'm interested to know where your focus was, so you're the reigning champion and you said it was ours to lose and yet you were willing to take a huge risk to win. Where was your focus, almost defending the status or was it about pushing the boundaries and doing something? We always wanted to be different, yes, we always wanted to change ourselves and that was a period of time when there weren't that many of us. competitions and when we revealed a new routine, we kept it a secret as long as we could because we were going to Germany and a place called Obero in Bavaria and that's where we trained because we could basically train all day.

At that moment, when we came back to do our first competition, which was the British one, it was almost like the first moment, a revelation for the first time that our competitors also wanted to know what you were doing, right? buzz around this within the skating world. I remember we used to do it in those days, there was no social media, but we had maybe four or five journalists like the express or whatever that always covered skating and I remember one of them was him from the express anyway when Hilton , yeah, when he heard we were wearing Bolero, he said and he was always a big fan of ours, he was always cool, he said it's a bit boring, isn't it bolero? and we said no, we.

I don't find it boring, but I think I heard it in the context of just listening to the music sitting, listening to the music, but when you do movement and you skate, it becomes something different and what we tried to put into it was the connection between us because From the beginning our eyes were this close, how did you learn to trust your instincts to know that doing something daring would end up winning you the gold medal? I think it's the confidence we got from winning. The first time people said you're actually the best and there's something I would talk about, that mantle of putting on the Champions code.

I think that gave us confidence to later be more creative and want to challenge other paths. areas different directions and showing showing our audience and the judges you know this is what we can do now this is different no one has done this before why not do something and we know it's a sport but there's also that creative side, I think not No I want to be too lofty, but you know artists and writers are always looking to improve and that's what we were trying to do in our sport. May I ask how you developed the ability to look into each other's eyes and when? you did a demonstration there and you said they were 15 years old and they couldn't look at each other because they came, right?

Because there's some really interesting research on this around a pretty large area around synchronicity that if you sit down and stare into someone's eyes to investigate says and they just sit across from each other for 15 minutes, their heart rate , you, inhale and your skin starts to synchronize with the other person's, so obviously it was a significant moment for both of you and I'm interested in when that happened, um, I think. pretty early because one of our big judges and mentors was a chat named Courtney Jones and he was like, you need to have eye contact on top of eye contact otherwise no one will believe you and that wasn't necessarily in every routine.

You also have to perform for the audience, but years ago they used to have these things called mandatory dancers which, like ballroom dancing, were a tango, a wal, or a foxtop, whatever, and depending on that type of dance, there were moments where it was like you were looking at each other, so I think from an early stage we learned that eye contact was important, you know, when you watch television or a movie and when an actor talks to someone and is actually talking to them in their faces and trying to get into their heads is real, right? and you and it's believable and I think that's what we tune into, we want it to seem believable, but we get over that of the physicality. looking but actually believing when we look at each other, sometimes we are almost for me and I think for Jane we are almost talking to each other when we look at each other too, yes, and over the years because I have done many shows and performances so professional if one of we have a problem like I don't know something went wrong or you, I don't know, your KN became funny, look at the tick, can't you feel it?

We look at each other and you guys do that and we know like Chris said you can talk with your eyes so yeah and how hard was it to maintain professionalism in this you know we all watch Strictly Come Dancing they talk about the curse of what strictly. and you work, you know, for a long time I'm ice dancing and you see the impact it can have when two people are very close to each other physically and then mentally, so how did you tread this line to keep it platonic? keep it professional I don't know I guess we grew up with it so we didn't do it I mean yeah I think the focus was skating it wasn't a career so it was something we really wanted to pursue yeah and then once. you start to be successful, that became the most important thing in our life, so I guess we were very motivated in what we wanted to achieve, yeah, well, we knew that to become professionals, you know, the program has your name, so This is after the competition.

However, after the competition came a long way and then you get paid to do what you love to do, but if you're doing a professional show, you know there's no mistake because you can't be stupid and I. I don't know, leaving and getting married in the middle of a season of a show or having an affair with someone because, like Chris said, you have to stay focused on what you're doing because the next day you'll have to I have to be ready to do a performance and some once crossed the line and then you have to have a conversation and say this is when we were younger, we were kind of like for us, minute, yeah, when but it didn't last long. but it was before big competitions and when you're kids, when you're teenagers and people just go on trips and go to competitions and then have some fun, but I think even then our main focus was skating and being ready to train a day next and stuff.

I think we finally got to that place where we knew we were the best of friends and that friendship has. I mean, I think mutual friendship has gotten us to this point now, 50 years later. We are often asked what the secret of their friendship is. They never married. They never married. They married. They don't sleep together, yes, but they have also had to push each other to the limit to achieve success. I have and this is something that I love to talk to people about because I think that nowadays we underestimate hard work and we often underestimate it because everyone can work hard and I think it makes people feel better if they don't talk about how hard what is it.

Work well, there must be another reason for your success, but the truth is that without hard work you wouldn't be sitting now, you definitely wouldn't have had that gold medal and all the other things that follow, what would you like to give up? our listeners hear what hard work is like for us, for us, it's a repetition, waking up every day, doing the same thing day after day, when it hurts, when it's cold, when you don't feel like it, when you're sick. um you just know we used to practice, um if one of us was sick, cold, flu, period cramps, we'll still go ahead and do it because that could happen on the day of the competition, so it's overcoming adversity knowing that you You can get over it and move on.

I think that's what hits the nail on the head because you have to know mentally that you can do it. And we, when we trained in Germany for our competitive years, we trained six hours a day. so we had a routine: we would get up, have breakfast for 2 hours in a section of the competition, have lunch or take a break for another two hours and then two hours or so in the late afternoon and that was the routine and, like Chris said, you know If one of us, um, had a minor injury, you would still go to training because mentally you had to know that if you woke up on the morning of the Olympic final and had a cold, you could do it, so there was no fear. of like oh god, what if I don't feel good tomorrow?

There was no fear of it because you knew what it felt like because you did it, we did it and you also know, um, going on the ice, the practice session, uh. it's like you never miss it, you never miss a training session for any reason, but something about it reminded me when I was reading your biography of a friend of mine who played for the Melbourne star in the Australian rugby league and one of things they do when they hire a new player for the first two weeks, they send you to work on the roofs of houses or to work on a construction site and then you have to come to train at night and they do it to reinforce a feeling of privilege to be a professional athlete and I wonder if your own story of having to train while holding down a normal job in many ways reinforces that, I think it definitely, um, it was like you say, it makes you appreciate the time that you can go and training because that's what you want to do, that's what you love to do, but at the same time, yeah, when we didn't have the commitments of a job, you appreciate it even more.

It's not like we were always there, you know, we had to work, we decided that Chris was a police officer, so I was training police as a proper career, um, not knowing what was actually in store for me, and I was just working at a company insurance in the office, which I hated. I don't like sitting at a desk and writing so I don't know why I did it because I needed to make some money and then in '19, in 1980, we came fifth in the Olympics and that was the year we thought. We had a chance to win a bronze medal next year and so we decided to quit our jobs and use the money we saved enough money for just six months forthe next six months so we could at least get through the next season. and give ourselves because all of our competitors were training full time, so we did that and my dad, Jane's parents, they all worked their whole lives and that's what I knew, we were just going to work, work, work, um , and so when we decided to put our careers on hold it was a huge thing because you never knew when you're at school your day is organized two weeks later I'm in the police Poli Cadets you're organizedorganized, you're organized and then we decided we were going to quit our jobs and suddenly you're in this void of what the day is like when you wake up.

I mean, obviously we would train as much as we could, but that allowed us to go to Germany, but it was a big thing at the time, wasn't it really not having a job because you didn't consider skating to be a hobby? We were so naive that we went to um Dole's office to sign up? Because some of the other skaters said, "We'll go sign up and you'll get some money, so we went and you know one of the first questions is what kind of job are you looking for? We said no, we're just not going to work, we want to skate." and he said there you go that was before us that was before we hit the ground that's how naive we were that's funny hey I just want to dive in and say real quick that today's episode is in association with Manuel they are changing the conversation about the men's healthcare and I'm so glad I'm joined by the medical director, Dr.

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I'm really interested in what life was like after 1984. You know, a former office worker, a former police officer, offers them both with a very normal humble upbringing, both grafted for years with no money, just out of pure love of skating, and suddenly you are possibly the two most famous people. the country, how was that? It was like after the Olympic Games. We wanted to do our last world championships, so the order of things is the European Olympics and then the World Championships, so instead of coming home in the middle of everything, you know what was happening. about the Fanfare and all that we went back to Germany to our little town in Bavaria and continued training so we had nothing, we didn't go back to the UK to taste any kind of success or what people thought we did.

Well, we didn't want to get distracted because even though the Olympics are the most important thing, we still wanted to do a world championship to finish the journey to the Crown, so we went back to Germany and continued our training um and I think. At the Olympics, one thing that surprised us was the amount of media that was there, I mean, naively, you just know we were used to our English press of four or five, but you know the world press was there and we knew it, so we definitely did it. We didn't want to go back to the UK, we wanted to go to Germany and keep training, but eventually we came back to the UK and after the World Championships we couldn't believe how many people had seen it and you know, because we thought this was a month or two ago , so they would have forgotten about it by now, but they certainly hadn't and we ended up doing a parade around Nottingham like a pop mobile where you stop and wave. and but they weren't even supposed to put in the newspaper where the route went and we were all a little embarrassed by it all anyway there was no one there and the streets were lined up to the center of the city and then the square was full too of people, so you know, in life later you don't realize what those four minutes can do in the Olympics and so can you take us to the timeout before those 4 minutes because that's really Stark ?

Comment that you are saying as if you had four years of preparation for it and I am interested in knowing how you control your nerves, how I get very insular. I do not talk to anyone. I do not talk to anyone. I don't really talk. people, but we were talking about this the other day: at a major competition and certainly at the Olympics, you have a place in the women's locker room where you always put your stuff and that's where you sit and put on your skates. and sometimes if someone of lower rank, like the one lower in the ranking, comes in and goes to your place, it's like a big deal and someone who I didn't even have to tell people that they put their bag in my Other people certainly did, Karen.

Chris's partner, who was also on the team, moved in and says she moved someone's back because she knew I was going to sit there. You know it's a point of superstition when you start saying, so it's all those normal things. Everything you do you repeat. well, you sit in the same place, you put on the same boot, you put on the left boot first and so on, I have the guards that cover your swords and they have to be lined up side by side facing the ice doesn't move them , they have to stay like this. Little things that get you on the ice.

Chris always walked at his pace. I get to the locker room, he gets to the locker room, but then when he put on his skates, he walked up and down. the hallway while I sat because in my head I was resting and saving energy. Chris had to walk because I don't know why you had to walk. I can't be idle, the little activity just keeps it going and did you do it? we talk to each other about these routines, we wouldn't really talk when we were once we got to the building to the arena why I don't know, no need to say anything at that time in the zone we knew what we had to do, yeah.

It was just a look and then it was just a handshake while we were there, come on, when you stood there at the barrier right before they announced your name, that's one of those moments where like that, you know everything, no what we feel. like that, but I think we can look at it now and say it all depends on this moment when you look at it again, but we know it so you can breathe and while it was happening, did you know it was going well? Do you think we are? I was going to win the damn Olympics here, no, that thought wasn't there, the thought was about what we were doing and being at that moment in that kind of love story that we were trying to tell people and what I remember about it is that the audience was pretty quiet once we got up and started kneeling, there was kind of a real feeling in the room of I don't know how many thousands of people, but the quieter they were, I think for us.

It was a good sign because they were drawn together with the story and there was no contact. Yeah, it wasn't until the end where we heard a lot of applause, it was like you know there's slow motion where there's a lot of applause. of action that happens in a movie, but then they slow it down to slow motion and then at the end something goes and comes back to you, yeah, that's how it was at the end that we almost woke up to applause because everything was We were going in slow motions, I mean , the dance itself had that feeling, but in our heads you know it's like a racing driver, everyone says if it's slow you drive fast and in a sense we were in that same state of flow.

Flow state, it was just everything we did day in and day out for nine months, 10 months, same thing, same thing, and here we were and we always say what are we doing in these Olympic Games in Aesthetics that what are you doing? you're not trying to go further than you've done before you're not biting faster or trying a little harder that's not the day not to hold it in that's the day you want everything to come your way I know it can happen, so Comm in the previous part there is a study that was done in the 1970s with similar figure skaters where they found that good and champion figure skaters made similar levels of errors, but the difference was how they responded to the errors almost in self-talk. and how they processed it, so obviously they must have made a number of mistakes to be able to deliver for those 4 minutes on the last Olympic day, how they would approach it with each other, what the type of conversations were. you would have mistakes and correcting each other, usually mistakes, you carry it out, solve the mistake if you are training and you are doing a review of the whole while we build things, it is like a piece of wood that is square that you want to make as smooth as possible. you can so that the routine you are trying to make us fluid and easy and flu and silky as you can that everything is almost like taiichi I almost want it for that Anyway, even a quick routine wants to feel like that.

You reach a level when you first start a routine, you start with small sections because you're building and once it's completed, there's a certain point in training several weeks later where you say okay, let's try to go over everything and 4 minutes whatever and 4 minutes doesn't sound very long but it is long, it can be long depending on the routine, yes, and if once we have done it they said to each other, let's do it, let's go ahead today and, As Chris said quite often, there are little glitches and mistakes, but it's a team thing like I'm not going to stop if I make a mistake.

Even if it's like a proper trip or something, I jump in and move on, and that's how you do it in training and you learn from those mistakes because you think, oh, you analyze it and you think, oh, I did that because of my weight. it was too far to the left and it needs to be this and so on and then we could be a grab where you lost your hand and you figure out why I lost that hand um but I think those are the things that along the way that even though they come out wrong, it's kind of satisfying because then you figure out what went wrong and how to fix it and in that the routine gradually gets better, so I think when people operate in an elite space like you've done for all of their lives, we all assume that they must be just ruthless, rigid and constant, focused on the goal, but in reality, what they have talked so much about here is actually empathy, the understanding that your partner is going to make a mistake, the understanding that they may have a physical problem . right now that's holding them back, so how do you strike the right balance between wanting the best for yourself and your partner but accepting failure?

I think there is tension at certain points, yes, and there has to be that level of tension if that's the case. too mediocre, could you give us an idea of ​​one of those because I think when people think about YouTube they think, oh, they met 50 years ago and they haven't had a single crossword puzzle since, but I think it's important to talk about how see, how? you fixed it Chris has done something for me so what was it? Let's be really honest and what he was like. She liked him from the beginning. He used to get if we made a mistake early on.

Whether it was him or me. We both used to get frustrated and I used to get, oh, let's do it again because I was the calm and relaxed one and he used to get the and the Yang, right? Yeah, I definitely think we congratulate him. I would be one of the pushers and Jane will be the one to leave, we can do it, let's do it again, we'll do it again and and and I think because we understood each other if he was getting tense, I knew why he was tense because he wanted to do it. better it wasn't for nothing it wasn't getting mad at you it wasn't getting mad at me for any unrelated reason it wasn't something personal it was to get the right skating look you've announced you're in I'm retiring, first of all, congratulations, thank you.

Why now and why retire? Why not skate? They both look in excellent shape. They can still do it. 50 years is a good round number. I think they know and it's been a long time. we want to do it the way we want to do it. I think we're at the last place where we can still do it and as we get older we won't be able to do it and someone I once said it was a long time ago, leave the stage before the stage leaves you so I think the time is right And I'm feeling good.

I'm going to buy a caravan. I'm going to go see England, oh yeah, yeah, what. are the things we talked about at the beginning was this Partnership Charter that looked at big partnerships and how they stayed together and one of the final factors was having a plan to end the partnership, so how did it break down? I don't really remember the issue of retiring, but I think that several years ago, in the 90s, 1988, 1998, 98, we were guests at a show in the United States, and we decidedthat this was going to be our last performance in private, in silence, in private.

I didn't want to make a big announcement so we quietly left. I came home to have a family. You did the same and we didn't tell anyone, but we knew this was our last performance. someone captured this very blurry image of us hugging after the number oh that's right yeah, which normally wouldn't work, but it was an OCC, normally you bow, but we really hogged it at the end, um, but then, um, someone a year later. I mean, we were still in touch all the time. A year or so later, someone said about the idea of ​​ice dancing, right?

What do you think about teaching celebrities to never go to work? In series 16, over a period of 19 years, this part of our lives lasted longer than our competitive part, so you know we would never have done it. I thought we would still do it at this time of our lives for so long, so that we wouldn't change anything and we gave ourselves the opportunity to perform again because initially we were only going to choreograph once we had the logistics of what it would be like. could work etc. We were going to choreograph all the routines for the slbs and then one of our producers said can you demonstrate some of the moves on camera so the viewers know what a three turn is or whatever and we said yes, sure. of course and then she says, oh, can you demonstrate it with music?

So we thought they knew what they were doing, that's a routine and then it's not a routine, so we thought B, we thought about it and we were a little excited. The idea of ​​doing that was because we were in the studio at our first performance, it felt very different because we were used to performing in big arenas and these people were like you know, so yeah, but yeah, yeah, here. We have so many 50s, you know? I think we always knew that and this time, instead of just whining, I felt like we wanted to say thank you and a celebration and a last goodbye, that's a good place for us to end before I quickly stop our questions with the word thank you and be that you know they will stay together they will continue dancing on ice even if they don't skate but what would you like to thank the other person for what they gave? you in your skating race to finish oo oh I think we did it together thanks for being my partner thanks for being my partner there's not much more to say that we're best friends, right?

Take me, bear with me, yeah, we've seen, you know, we've been together, we've known each other since we were 10, um and now we're a lot older, so we've grown through it all. those seasons of your life and getting to this point becomes emotional, right? No, I'm fine no, you're fine, she is, sometimes she has a heart of stone, yeah, I can see that made you a little emotional, what was it? I guess it's all the memories and when time goes by, yeah, I think, um, yeah, you look back and suddenly you see that there's a life that happened, you wouldn't change it and it's been happy, but it's like, oh God, All the stuff, very often we have these strange conversations and Chris says, remember when we had dinner with so-and-so and it would be someone famous and I said we never had dinner with them?

I tell you we have to play with each other and he I'll say yes, we did because we went to the I said for real and then vice versa, he'll say, so it's like and you, then, then, you think about all the things you've done, without import skating and everything else. Lovely things we've been able to do, that I'm a part of, yeah, and don't you get excited or just don't let yourself go there? She's not as emotional as me, no, so sometimes I do it. I have to say it. Sometimes, come on, Jay, what gets you excited about Old Dogs?

Well, I think you know, when I get emotional is when I'm angry and that usually has to do with kids, right? And then I don't like the feeling of being angry so it makes me cry and then I'm fine after that more than yeah awesome right some quick questions first I thought that was it no these are quick questions so , we will do it in turns. I'm going to come to you with the first one, the three non-negotiable behaviors that you and the people around you should embrace, oh um, kindness, respect and what is it. I can't think of the word, can I tell you?

Yes go. about honesty, honest, that's all, yes, honesty and respect, well, they know each other, what would they choose too? I mean, I couldn't think of how honestly we've grown together this way. Our roots are so intertwined now, but um like ah, I don't know, this is going to be a question, but a life experience, something for me that I would love to discover, that I am achieving and it is a satisfaction, my father, he worked all his life, he was a minor and Um, I looked at him and he we didn't have much, but he was happy, he was happy with his lot and I think it's something that a lot of people, if you can find, it's a wonderful place to be, what's the best part. of advice you've ever received and why um, I think for us as a society and it was that eye contact that he gave us, I think everyone accepted it, it sounds like something made up, but the honesty of a performance that we were doing and And I think honesty is in the sense of how we express it, but I think it is also in life.

I think honesty is a good trait. If you could give advice to a young Jane or a young Chris, what would you give them? Oh, what's that famous saying about the word? The harder you work, the luckier you are CU. Some people say, oh, you're so lucky, but you actually think and the other cliché is, "don't prepare, prepare, prepare to fail," yeah, I mean, preparation is everything. Well, even today, when I'm working on ice dancing or choreographing something, I prepare for it, everything in my head, you have to go into situations knowing that you didn't come to this interview, saying, oh, what have they done? these two. prepared for it and that's the same in all areas of life I think if you could go back to a moment in your life what would it be why oh God I think again finishing the bowling alley yes that moment of sliding into the iPic yes he realized said The end, not the beginning, yes, yes, but that's the moment of, well, all the work, the peak is that peak moment when you reach that point and it's there and it all comes together, you don't know what's next and everything that is gone. before, but that single, precise second is the moment when you go, it's almost like that inhalation of air, like that, and can I briefly ask you what the relief or satisfaction that you felt was like in that moment, it was euphoria, yes, I think I think .

What we knew at that time was that we were skating the best we could and we talked about all the preparations and everything, and we knew at that time because if you were unlucky, you could catch a groove or a small hole in the ice. and we stumbled, but we didn't, um, that would have been very unfortunate, but we knew we had given our best and then regardless of what the judges did, we knew we couldn't have done better, so ultimately you're your only one. Golden. Rule that you would like to leave our audience with to live a high performance life Golden rule um find joy find joy what you enjoy being able to enjoy what you do well I think you both have it and it is an absolute pleasure for you to share so much with us and uh thank you thank you thank you very much we enjoyed it