When Christopher Dean and Jane Torvill stepped off an early morning train from West Germany, they were hardly revolutionary.
Dean, 25, wore a stiff shirt, cravat, argyle jumper and pinstriped team blazer. Next to him, 26-year-old Torvill, wearing a fur-trimmed coat, matching hat and silk scarf, flashed a shy smile. It wasn't on display, but somewhere in Nottingham there was a recently awarded MBE on display.
As they posed for the obligatory pose on the platform of Sarajevo train station, several photographers stood in front of them taking pictures.
The next nine days were a dangerous and treacherous gamble. The competition for the Olympic gold medal in ice dancing hinged on routines that bent the rules and challenged convention. Her free dance number was like chiffon becoming a spark.
Torvill and Dean could easily have played it safe.
Instead they played with fire.
image source, Getty Images
Torvill and Dean arrived at the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Olympics with three consecutive world titles.
“We felt strongly about what we were doing,” Dean says 40 years later. “It was just other people who felt it was a gamble.”
“We always needed our ideas to be one step ahead creatively,” adds Torvill. “It made sense because we were trying to tell a story.”
But 1984 was a time when stories competed to crush each other.
There were also conflicts within the family.
Even on the links, there was no escaping politics. A split ran through the ice.
There were also traditionalists who believed in honoring ice dancing's ballroom roots. They prioritized a combination of courtesy and control: calm precision, efficiency, and politeness in the skater's movements.
But a new wave was coming. A slower, more dramatic and romantic style emerged that excited audiences, even if it made the traditional judges uncomfortable.
The two approaches were different. And in sports that are scored subjectively, medals are determined by numbers scored by judges, which can be vulnerable if they differ too much.
Initially, Torvill and Dean leaned toward a conservative approach.
They were heading into the Olympics having completed a hat trick of winning world titles. There was little to prove, but too much to risk.
As far as they knew, this would be their last shot on the biggest stage. They were supposed to be on the pro circuit, and the rules at the time barred them from competing in future Olympics.
A musical 1930's Razzmatazz Showtunes from 42nd Street was planned. It will showcase their skills and satisfy both judges who prefer classic routines and those who prefer something more colorful.
But will it satisfy Torvill and Dean themselves?
At a dinner party in West London, I scoured a cassette tape looking for the song and theme, and ultimately decided it wasn't.
An even bolder crescendo to their Olympic career was needed.
In the basement of the hosts' one-story house, pleated silk costumes were dyed purple. An arranger was hired to cut his 15 minutes of music into two-thirds while preserving its sparkling heart. Torvill and Dean then retreated to Oberstdorf in the Bavarian Alps to try something new in seclusion.
“It's very hard to keep things secret these days, thanks to camera phones and social media, but no one really knew what we were doing,” Dean says. Masu. “We had confidence in what we were doing instead of listening to the arguments that we should do something safer, which is not appropriate for an Olympic year.”
“We wanted to do something that had never been done before and something that had never been seen before,” adds Torvill.
Indeed, a piece like Bolero had never been created before. There's probably nothing like it since then.
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Torvill and Dean's famous bolero opening was choreographed to compensate for the extra 18 seconds of musical accompaniment.
Torvill and Dean's free dance in Sarajevo on February 14, 1984, began with them kneeling face to face on the ice.
They had no other choice. “Bolero,” which ranges from the stealth of a snake charmer to a raging storm, could not be entirely contained within her four minutes and ten seconds allotted for musical accompaniment.
However, the two discovered a loophole. The clock does not officially start until the first blade makes contact with the ice.
At the start, they kneel, pivot, and swoop around each other for over 18 seconds before standing and skating, making their routine still legal.
Dean was warming up, subtly roughing up the ice where he needed it to keep his knees from slipping under his knees, which provided far less traction than a sharp blade.
Their routine ended with both of them lying on their backs on the ice, their hearts pounding.
In the intervening minutes, they took the Sarajevo crowd and 23 million British television viewers to new heights.
Flowers rained down on the ice. A perfect artistic impression of the packed stadium illuminated the scoreboard.
“Tonight we reached the top. I don't remember the performance at all. It just happened,” Dean said at the time.
Their anxieties about music, staging, and steps disappeared. An unnamed rival coach had a theory.
They told the New York Times that only Torvill and Dean's magic was powerful enough to bridge the rift in the sports world.
“Maybe,” they said, “the judges will have to accept Torvill and Dean because they are so good.”
“But they don't want ice dancing to fundamentally change, so they're prepared to punish anyone who tries to be different.”
But everything had changed for Torvill and Dean himself.
Princess Anne toasted with champagne on the stand. Her mother, Queen Elizabeth, sent her signature telegram expressing her blessing on the performance, which “she watched with great pleasure”.
image source, Getty Images
Torvill and Dean's success in Sarajevo propelled them to new levels of celebrity and attention.
Everywhere they went, there were questions asked over and over again. Can such a romance on the ice stop once they get off the ice? Despite suspending their disbelief, their fans really have to face a much more mundane reality again. I wonder if it was?
At one press conference, a journalist asked them if they were getting married.
“Well, not this week,” Dean smiled.
Reacting to the observation that this pair seemed to be more closely bonded than other pairs, Torvill simply looked over at her partner and responded with a cryptic “yes.”
“We didn't consciously try to maintain an aura about it, but we also didn't engage in conversations about it,” Dean says, reflecting on the speculation.
“We were going to play the game at arm's length, so people are going to speculate about that. People support what you're doing on the ice.”
“If we're portraying two people in love and people believe that, then we're doing our job right,” Torvill added.
It's one thing to have that romance impress millions of people. Sustaining that illusion for more than 10 years is another story.
image source, Getty Images
Torvill and Dean wait for the free dance to begin at Lillehammer in 1994. There, they performed to Irving Berlin's “Let's Face the Music and Dance.”
By 1994, the rules had changed.
The easing of restrictions means Torvill and Dean, now 36 and 35 respectively, are free to return and attempt an unusual repeat.
But things have changed too.
Torvill and Dean got married, but to the dismay of many fans, he married someone else. They were also no longer the sport's golden couple, poised to win medals of the same color.
“I think some people felt we were coming back for glory,” Dean says.
“But we really came back to test ourselves for this challenge. It was a measuring stick for us.”
“It's clear that the countries and the skaters who were competing and climbing the trees hoping for medals felt let down.”
The backstory was different. The context has changed. We also had to switch tactics.
Torvill and Dean's bolero routine sparked a wave of egregious imitations, and skating authorities became stricter about music choices, banning the pair from starting their routine by kneeling or lying on the ice.
“We have a reputation for bending the rules, so to speak, and we were coming back after 10 years as professionals, so we really wanted to adapt and when we got to Lillehammer we said, 'If we do this, we'll be fine.' I didn’t want to continue,” Torvill added.
They didn't dare try to recreate the boldness and authenticity of the bolero. Instead, they opted for a daily routine of music and dancing.
It was a hilarious, glamorous and complex finale to the show, full of show business brilliance and sophistication. It was different from “Bolero,” less graphic and cuter, but it seemed like it could have the same effect as the couple linked arms and the music gave way to cheers.
The flowers fell, the audience rose to its feet, the dream lived on, the fairy tale continued.
Until it doesn't. When the technical achievement was announced, there were cries of disgust from the audience. In “Bolero” he collected nine perfect sixes to give an artistic impression, but in Lillehammer he collected only one.
The lead the British pair held heading into the final round was whipped out from under them. Torvill trudged backstage, a bouquet of flowers in his hands. He would end up with only a bronze medal.
image source, Characteristics of Rex
Torvill and Dean, along with their coach, watch the final free dance section of the Lillehammer 1994 campaign yield results
“I was a little surprised by the marks,” Dean said at the time, then corrected himself after a pause.
Newspapers back home were less restrained.
Ultimately, the legality of the final lift was deemed a weakness in their routine.
With the benefit of another 30 years, Dean has become more philosophical.
“We were taking advice,” he said of choosing the final free dance number. “It wasn't bad advice, but I don't know if it was the right advice.
“As a performer and an artist, it's really important to follow your passion and your heart.”
Those who followed Torvill and Dean into the sport are not lacking in direction.
Free Dance comes with an important list of things that should be included in every performance. Each individual element is weighed, measured and evaluated against a gold standard. Risk is reduced. Surprises are kept to a minimum.
Standardization has reduced the scope for confusion and controversy in 1994, but it has also reduced the scope for the persuasive originality of 1984.
“You know you have to do spins and footwork to get these kinds of lifts,” Dean explains of the modern ice dance scene.
“It's both the quantity and the quality that you put into it that matters, but a lot of it is quantity.
“The sport has progressed in terms of athleticism and the standard of skating is amazing, but that means there is a bit of commonality.”
Torvill and Dean's own final dance is just around the corner. Tickets are now on sale for the 28-date farewell tour, which culminates in Glasgow on May 11, 2025.
It would put an end to their 50-year skating partnership and Bolero, and the chance to suspend disbelief again will no doubt take center stage.
They may have been banned from the sport, but their romance still keeps audiences on the edge of their seats.
image source, Getty Images
Torvill and Dean have since recreated their bolero act hundreds of times around the world, but the production that won them a gold medal at the 1984 Olympics remains unparalleled.
