Faye Brookes has been a firm favourite to win ever since she started her Dancing on Ice journey – but according to James Jordan, she won't be crowned the 2021 champion.
The former Strictly Come Dancing star - who won DOI in 2019 - claimed that Faye appears to have lost some of the magic that put her ahead in the competition after being forced to change her professional partner.
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The Coronation Street actress was originally paired with professional skater Hamish Gaman, but he was sadly forced to pull out of the competition after sustaining an injury.
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Faye is now partnered with Matt Evers, who James believes isn't as well suited to her as Hamish was.
"I don't think Faye’s a front-runner anymore. I think Sonny [Jay] now is the front-runner," James told HELLO! "
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Faye and Matt performed their first routine together during Movie Week
"Before, I thought it was definitely Faye. I just don't think maybe she suits Matt’s style as much as she did Hamish's. But you know, they had one week to work with each other. With Hamish, she had months."
Speaking about Faye and Matt's debut performance last Sunday, James said: "I was really disappointed with Matt and Faye. She nearly fell over a couple of times.
Faye lost her partner Hamish after he sustained an injury
"I didn't think the routine was that good. I understand that it must be tough to go from one professional to another - but I just thought it was very mediocre and she’s clearly a lot better than that because when she was performing with Hamish she created some amazing routines. This week she was very average when before this week, she was a clear front-runner."
He continued: "I’m not knocking Matt, he’s fantastic at what he does. But maybe there are different styles, each pro will choreography is different. Maybe Hamish’s choreography suited her better. I thought Colin was better, I thought Sonny was better. I think she had the right place on the leaderboard because you can still see she’s very good."
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