It’s been a solid start to Strictly Come Dancing for Ellie Simmonds – even if she was docked a point for an illegal lift during Saturday night’s episode.
But the Paralympian has admitted she’s been taken aback by just how gruelling the training process has been for the show, revealing to RadioTimes.com that she’s been exhausted by the rehearsals.
“The training is tougher than expected,” she said when asked which aspect of the show had been toughest so far. “We’re training like 9am until 6pm… we’re pushing our bodies – I’m aching all over. You can see I’ve got a massive bruise there.”
Asked how she sustained the bruise, her professional partner Nikita Kuzmin interjected: “We get bruises all over the place because we’re training so much. And sometimes we are doing tricks and deadlifts and things just happen.”
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“Yeah, and a bit of me probably being a bit clumsy at times,” Simmonds added. “But I think the body, and just the tiredness and the exhaustion… I’ve been giving everything to Strictly. I’m feeling muscles that I’ve never felt before.”
Despite the docked point on Saturday, Ellie and Nikita still finished in a comfortable mid-table spot on the Strictly leaderboard, scoring 30 points for the second week in a row and coming in 6th place.
Additional reporting by Lauren Morris
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