Jody Cundy has spoken out after being eliminated from Strictly Come Dancing on Sunday night.
The Paralympian was the third contestant to be knocked out of the competition after facing the dance-off during the results show, alongside his partner Jowita Przystal.
Taking to Instagram, the 45-year-old shared a montage of images from his four dances on the show, and wrote a long caption, which began: "What an emotional rollercoaster. @bbcstrictly has been an absolute blast, I’ve learned so much about myself in the short time I’ve been on the show, learned to dance (well almost), become more comfortable with who I am and what I represent, and my confidence has grown to the point that I’ve been filmed having a spray tan, having my chest waxed and having my shirt ripped open on live TV.
He went on: "All things I could never have imagined doing before.
I have had an amazing dance partner in @jowitaprzystal , who has taken me on this journey, she has been so patient with me, has believed in me throughout. I don’t think I’ve met someone who has as much energy as her day in day out."
© Guy LevyJody continued: "Her love for dance is endless, and as bad as I was, she kept coming back day in day out because she believed I could do it more than I could. I couldn’t have achieved what I have without her guidance.
"Also a massive thankyou to my beautiful fiancée @lulubo1982 who has supported me throughout, kept everything running back home and allowed me to put in the hours of practice I did in the dance studio, I hope I can repay that support in our life together."
The star then sweetly thanked British Cycling and the show's viewers. Fans rushed to the comments section to share their support for the sportsman. One person wrote: "Bravo! You were super! Good luck for Paris 2024!"
Another commented: "Loved watching you dance, you were a joy to watch & you’ve got the best chest on Strictly." During Sunday's show, Jody and Jowita faced Eddie Kadi and Karen Hauer in the dance-off.
Both couples took to the ballroom floor once again, with Jody dancing the Salsa to 'Samba de Janeiro' by Bellini, whilst Eddie performed his American Smooth to 'Sex Bomb' by Tom Jones. All four judges decided to save Eddie and Karen, sending Jody and Jowita home from the competition.
© Guy LevySpeaking about his time on the show, Jody said he had "an absolute blast" whilst chatting to the show's co-host Tess Daly.
"You know what, when I signed up for this I thought what on earth am I signing up for and we did that first live show and I absolutely loved every second of it," he said. "And just being able to dance and do something I've never done before and get completely out of my comfort zone and with this amazing person."
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Turning to Jowita, he continued: "This person's got so much energy, every morning like 9 o'clock we've got, start of training and she's like BAMMM, like this, she comes into the room like an absolute cannonball and she just doesn't stop the whole day. And she doesn't lose any faith, doesn't lose anything, motivates me on to do more and more. So I've had an absolute blast."
© Guy LevyJowita expressed her pride over her dance partner, telling him: "I cannot even describe how proud I am of you Jody, cause from Day 1 till now, it's enormous improvement. And I hope from now on, when you go out, when you hear the music, you're not going to hide anywhere.
"You're going to go on that dancefloor and you're going to give it all. And I hope, one day when you look back at all of this, you will say to yourself I'm proud of myself, because that will be my biggest achievement."
© Guy LevyJody's elimination comes just over a week after he revealed his leg had become infected and he was forced to miss two days of rehearsals ahead of Movie Week.
He wrote on Instagram at the time: "You may have seen on It Takes Two, that I’ve picked up a minor niggle this week that’s meant I’ve missed a few days training. Everything seems to be settling down and I hope to be back on the dancefloor this Saturday evening."
Thankfully, Jody was still able to perform and earned a solid 20 points from the judges for his American Smooth to 'Married Life' by Michael Giacchino.
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)
Now that Jody has left the show, 12 contestants remain in the competition and will battle it out next Saturday in a bid to impress the judges and make it through to the following week.
Strictly Come Dancing returns on Saturday 21 October at 6.35pm, with the results show on Sunday 22 October at 7:15pm on BBC One.
