WHEN champion ice-skaters Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean performed their ground-breaking Bolero routine on February 14, 1984, at the Sarajevo Winter Olympics the nation was hooked.

We might have been aware of them previously, but this was just exquisite. Fortunately, the judges thought so, too, and awarded them all sixes to give them the gold medal.

Fast forward a couple of decades and the quiet couple who let their ice-skating speak for them are now popular TV stars, as expert judges in ITV’s Dancing on Ice which reaches its exciting finale next weekend.

They are very far from the flashy celebrities of today. You rarely see them at glitzy events and are never photographed rolling bleary-eyed out of a club in the early hours.

They call themselves “old school” but are actually the epitome of true professionals. Any controversy relates to differences of opinion over contestants’ skills and they remain low-key and modest.

But then, as genuine champions in their sport, they really have nothing left to prove to us.