Torvill and Dean announce skating retirement on 40th anniversary of Olympic gold

Torvill and Dean will hang up their skates for good in 2025 and announced their decision on the anniversary of their iconic Bolero routine at the 1984 Olympic Games

Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean have marked the 40th anniversary of their Olympic gold medal by announcing they will be retiring from ice skating in 2025.

The Nottingham duo won gold at the 1984 Winter Games in Sarajevo following their perfect routine to Ravel’s Bolero, writing their names in British sporting history.

Forty years on, Torville and Dean returned to Sarajevo to celebrate and confirmed they will hang up their skates for good next year following one last UK tour in 2025.

Torvill and Dean turned professional after their Bolero performance and won bronze at the 1994 Winter Olympics before retiring from competition.

They would later become the faces of ITV’s Dancing on Ice, which ran from 2006 until 2014, then becoming head judges on the show when it was revived in 2018.

Torvill and Dean, who are now 66 and 65 respectively, will retire from dancing together following their upcoming tour – Torvill & Dean: Our Last Dance – which will run from 12 April to 11 May 2025.

Reflecting on how their Olympic gold medal inspired a generation of ice skaters in the UK, Dean said: “That was really a launching pad of then going off to do other things.

“Touring around the world, skating in front of hundreds of thousands of people and then Dancing on Ice starting up because of winning the Olympics.”

Torvill and Dean’s memorable Bolero routine received perfect scores of 6.0 from the 12 judges.

Torvill and Dean in Sarajevo, where they won their gold medals at the 1984 Winter Olympics (PA)

Remembering their career, Dean said: “I think there comes a time when you know. We’re not spring chickens anymore. We’re still able to do it to a certain degree that we feel good about it, but that will go.

“So I think this is the right time for us to be able to do that and go and skate and do some of the old routines, be very nostalgic, but then do some new fun, upbeat [dances] with friends of ours from the skating world and from Dancing on Ice.

“We’re looking at it as a celebration.”

Torvill & Dean: Our Last Dance will travel across the UK from 12 April to 11 May 2025, with tickets on sale now at torvillanddean.com