Nikita Kanda and Gorka Márquez were the second couple to be sent home during Strictly Come Dancing's Sunday night results show.
The pair faced Zara McDermott and her dance partner Graziano Di Prima in the dreaded dance-off, which saw both couples perform their routines from Movie Week in a bid to impress the judges and remain in the competition.
Zara and Graziano were the first to take to the floor with their Pasodoble to 'The Puss Suite' from Puss In Boots, before Nikita and Gorka danced their Jive to 'Kids In America' from Clueless.
After both couples danced for a second time, the judges decided who they wanted to save.
© Guy LevyCraig Revel Horwood, Motsi Mabuse and Anton Du Beke all voted in favour of Zara and Graziano, giving the couple the majority vote and sending them into next week's show. Head judge Shirley Ballas said she would have also saved Zara.
When making his decision, Anton said that while both couples performed better, there were mistakes in Nikita's dance. "I did think both couples danced better in the dance-off, unfortunately there were a couple of small mistakes from one of the couples, so the couple I would like to save is Zara & Graziano," he said.
© BBCSpeaking to host Tess Daly after the judges' decision, Nikita said she didn't want to leave. "I don't want to leave yet, I feel like I've let him down," she said. "I've had the best time and I love all my Strictly family, I'm going to miss you all. This has been a dream come true, I'm so grateful. I've got to say the biggest thankyou to Gorka, he has been the biggest support and I've had the best time ever."
Gorka then shared a touching tribute to Nikita and expressed how proud she has made him over the past few weeks. "I am beyond proud of her, for someone that doesn't have any dance experience or performance experience to come on this show and dance in front of millions of people – for three weeks, I think it's incredible," he told Tess. "You should be very proud of yourself, you have never let me down and I am very proud of you. This show is going to teach you so many things about yourself that you can take with you and I take incredible memories. I've never laughed so much in three weeks than I did with you!"
Every Strictly Come Dancing winner so far
- 2004: Natisha Kaplinsky (partner Brendan Cole)
- 2004: Jill Halfpenny (partner Darren Bennett)
- 2005: Darren Gough (partner Lilia Kopylova)
- 2006: Mark Ramprakash (partner Karen Hardy)
- 2007: Alesha Dixon (partner Matthew Cutler)
- 2008: Tom Chambers (partner Camilla Dallerup)
- 2009: Chris Hollins (partner Ola Jordan)
- 2010: Kara Tointon (partner Artem Chigvintsev)
- 2011: Harry Judd (partner Aliona Vilani)
- 2012: Louis Smith (partner Flavia Cacace)
- 2013: Abbey Clancy (partner Aljaž Škorjanec)
- 2014: Caroline Flack (partner Pasha Kovalev)
- 2015: Jay McGuiness (partner Aliona Vilani)
- 2016: Ore Oduba (partner Joanne Clifton)
- 2017: Joe McFadden (partner Katya Jones)
- 2018: Stacey Dooley (partner Kevin Clifton)
- 2019: Kelvin Fletcher (partner Oti Mabuse)
- 2020: Bill Bailey (partner Oti Mabuse)
- 2021: Rose Ayling-Ellis (partner Giovanni Pernice)
- 2022: Hamza Yassin (partner Jowita Przystał)
- 2023: Ellie Leach (partner Vito Coppola)
Nikita and Gorka scored 21 points from the judges during Saturday night's live show and while it was their highest score yet, it wasn't enough to save them from being voted out.
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© BBCWhile that's the last viewers will be seeing of the couple in this year's competition, the remaining 13 pairs will return to Elstree next Saturday for Week 4.
Strictly Come Dancing continues on Saturday 14 October at 6:30pm with the results show on Sunday 15 October at 7:15pm on BBC One.
