Jayne Torvill

Jayne Torvill
nation	United Kingdom
birthday	October 7, 1957
place of birth	Nottingham
size	160 cm
Weight	48 kg
Career
discipline	Ice dance, pair skating
Partner	Christopher Dean
Former partner	Michael Hutchenson
Trainer	Janet Sawbridge, Betty Callaway
status	resigned
Medal table
Olympic medals 1 × 0 × 1 × World Cup medals 4 × 0 × 0 × EM medals 4 × 0 × 0 ×
winter Olympics gold Sarajevo 1984 Ice dance bronze Lillehammer 1994 Ice dance  World figure skating championships gold Hartford 1981 Ice dance gold Copenhagen 1982 Ice dance gold Helsinki 1983 Ice dance gold Ottawa 1984 Ice dance  European figure skating championships gold Innsbruck 1981 Ice dance gold Lyon 1982 Ice dance gold Budapest 1984 Ice dance gold Copenhagen 1994 Ice dance

Jayne Torvill , married. Christensen , OBE (born October 7, 1957 in Nottingham , England ) is a former British figure skater who started in ice dancing .

youth

Jayne Torvill is the daughter of Betty and George Torvill, a news correspondent. She started ice skating at the age of eight.

Career

At the beginning of her figure skating career Jayne Torvill initially concentrated on the pair skating and together with Michael Hutchenson became British pair skating champion in 1972. The couple also took part in the European Championships in the same year and finished in 18th place.

In 1975, Christopher Dean became her ice dance partner. Torvill and Dean were initially trained by Janet Sawbridge . In 1978 they changed coach and went to Betty Callaway .

In 1978 Torvill and Dean made their debut at the Figure Skating World and European Championships . In 1980 they played their first Olympic Games in Lake Placid and finished them in fifth place. At world and European championships they still missed the podium as fourth. By then, Torvill, who worked for the Norwich Union Insurance Company in Nottingham, and Dean, who worked for the Nottingham Police Department, had already given up their jobs and were now fully focused on the sport. He acted as a choreographer for the team himself . In 1981 the triumphant advance of Torvill and Dean began. They became European champions in Innsbruck and world champions in Hartford . In 1982 they defended their European championship title in Lyon and their world championship title in Copenhagen . In 1983 they did not take part in the European Championship due to a fall injury Torvills, but won the gold medal at the World Championship in Helsinki . In 1984 they made the total triumph perfect when they became European champions in Budapest , Olympic champions in Sarajevo and world champions in Ottawa for the fourth time in a row.

The 1984 freestyle by Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean based on the music to Maurice Ravel's Boléro became world famous and was even featured as a video clip in some hit parades. At the Olympic Winter Games in Sarajevo in 1984, they received the ideal grade of 6.0 in the B-grade for the presentation nine times for this freestyle - that was the highest possible rating and the only time that this was achieved. In addition, they received the highest rating in the A grade three times. Torvill and Dean's Olympic appearance was one of the most popular events in British sports history; 24 million Britons watched the ice dancing couple in front of the television screens. Both were jointly voted BBC Sports Personality of the Year in 1984, for the first time in the history of this honor .

After the World Cup in 1984, Torvill and Dean became professionals, but in 1994, like Katarina Witt , they took advantage of the ISU's offer to be reamateurised. They won gold at the European Championships in Copenhagen. Ten years after their Olympic victory , they took part in the Winter Olympics again in Lillehammer in 1994 and won the bronze medal in an extremely exciting decision for ice dancing. From 1981 to 1983, Torvill and Dean were voted Team of the Year in Great Britain three times in a row. In 1989 they were inducted into the Figure Skating Hall of Fame . They were also awarded the Jacques Favart Order, the highest honor of the International Skating Union, by the ISU . She was also awarded the Order of the British Empire in 1999 .

In 2006 Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean appeared together on the ice for the first time in almost ten years in the British version of "Dancing on Ice".

In 2018, together with Dean, she choreographed Aljona Savchenko and Bruno Massot's freestyle , with which they won the gold medal in pair skating at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang with a world record.

Personal

Since September 21, 1990 Torvill is married to the US sound engineer Phil Christensen. She has two children with him. The family lives in East Sussex , England.

Results

Ice dance

(with Christopher Dean )

Competition / year	1977	1978	1979	1980	1981	1982	1983	1984	1994
winter Olympics				5.				1.	3.
World championships		11.	8th.	4th	1.	1.	1.	1.
European championships		9.	6th	4th	1.	1.		1.	1.
British Championships	2.	3.	1.	1.	1.	1.	1.	1.	1.

Web links

Commons : Jayne Torvill  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Jayne Torvill in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Official website of the ice dancing couple
• Literature by and about Jayne Torvill in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Only a wonder of the world could help: Christopher Dean choreographed her freestyle on zeit.de. Retrieved February 15, 2018.