We’ve reached the halfway stage of Strictly Come Dancing – and unfortunately, we had to lose another celebrity this week as the competition continues to heat up.
With the public votes having been added to last night’s judges’ scores, it was revealed that Adam Peaty and Tilly Ramsay would have to dance again after finishing in the bottom two.
Adam and Katya performed their Jive to Little Bitty Pretty One by Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers once again while Tilly and Nikita danced their Tango to Kings & Queens by Ava Max before the judges revealed their final verdict.
In the end, it was the end of the road for Adam and Katya, with Craig Revel Horwood, Motsi Mabuse, and Anton Du Beke all choosing to save Tilly – although head judge Shirley Ballas revealed that she would have opted to save Adam.
It was the second week in a row that Olympic Gold-medal winner Adam had appeared in the dance-off, having been saved in favour of Judi Love last week, and Anton explained that it was an incredibly tight call to make.
“Well, this was a great dance-off,” he said. “I’m delighted for both couples performing that well in the dance-off. If you have a dance-off, you want both people to dance really, really well and they both did. I found it so equal I was desperate for something to happen to make me choose and there was a moment in one of the dances that made me decide and that was Tilly and Nikita.”
Meanwhile, Craig said that he “wouldn’t have put these couples in the bottom” but said Tilly was the “better dancer” while Motsi explained that the Tilly “was more sound to the music”.
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Speaking to Tess about his time on the show, Adam revealed that he “absolutely loved every single challenge” and said he’d “never had a challenge like this”.
“As an Olympian for 16 years, I’ve pushed my body to places that I never thought it could be pushed,” he went on. “This is just a whole new ballgame and I’ve got so much respect for everyone that dances across the world and to all of these contestants and pros that put themselves on the line every single week, it’s just been a great experience.’
He also added that he wanted to say thanks to Katya and everyone involved in the show both in front of and behind the cameras.
Katya said that she, “was not ready to be in this position today,” but she was full of warm words for her partner.
“Looking back, this is you, you have done all of this. None of us expected you to come from the Olympics. After the dance-off, I looked at him and he had tears in his eyes. Someone who’s an absolute unbeatable machine that we see defending his titles for seven years non-stop, being emotional about dancing. I really think you deserve a lot more appreciation for what you’ve done and I was not ready for this.’
The remaining couples will take to the dance floor next Saturday at 6:40pm, as we begin to move into the latter stages of the competition.
Strictly Come Dancing continues next Saturday on BBC One. Check out more of our Entertainment coverage or visit our TV Guide to see what’s on tonight.