Christopher Dean, a Nottingham policeman, began his competitive ice dancing career with Sandra Elson as his partner and together they won the British junior title in 1974. The following year, Dean teamed up with Jayne Torvill and they won their first British championship three years later. In 1980 they finished fifth at the Olympic Games and in 1981 established themselves as performers of the highest class by winning the European and World Championships. After successfully defending both titles in 1982, the pair were forced to withdraw from the 1983 European Championships because of injury but they won the world title for the third successive year.
The performance or Torvill and Dean at the 1984 Olympics in Sarajevo will go down in history as one of the greatest sporting performances of all time. Their brilliant interpretation of Ravel’s Bolero drew a 6.0 for artistic impression from each of the nine judges and their total of twelve “sixes” for the entire competition broke all previous records. Four weeks later, in Ottawa, they even managed to better their Olympic score with a total of thirteen “sixes” to take their fourth world title. Their style of ice dancing enchanted audiences throughout the world and their memorable performances at Sarajevo has made Torvill and Dean one of the legends of Olympic history. Like most modern ice skating champions they turned professional and appeared in a highly successful ice show. However, as skating rules on professionalism were relaxed, Torvill and Dean again competed at the 1994 Winter Olympics, winning a bronze medal.
Christopher Dean later became a figure skating coach, especially focusing on choreography of free skating routines. In 1991 Dean married the French-Canadian ice dancer Isabelle Duchesnay, but they divorced in 1993. He later married American Olympic figure skater Jill Trenary in 1994. In 1999 Christopher Dean was made an officer of the OBE.
Great Britain