Dancing On Ice's Regan Gascoigne tops leaderboard amid 'show advantage' claims

Dancing On Ice's Regan Gascoigne topped the ITV series' leaderboard on Sunday night, as he made his debut on the show.

The son of former pro footballer Paul Gascoigne took to the ice with his professional skating partner Karina Manta, and immediately wowed the judges.

He was given the highest scores of the series so far, and was also told he'd performed the best week one routine ever on the ITV show.

But some fans immediately claimed Regan had an advantage over the other contestants, because he has a dancing background.

Regan is a professional dancer, trained in ballet, and some viewers claimed this gave him an "unfair advantage" for the show.

Dancing On Ice's Regan Gascoigne topped the ITV series' leaderboard on Sunday night (ITV)

But judges Ashley Banjo and Christopher Dean were quick to hit out at this idea, suggesting he had no skills in ice skating, so being a dancer wouldn't automatically help him do well.

His scores were two eights and two 8.5s, giving him 33 points out of 40 which was the highest mark so far.

Regan was surprised by the feedback, and even confessed to making a couple of mistakes during the live routine.

Dancing On Ice stars Ashley Banjo and Christopher Dean spoke out to deny Regan Gascoigne had an advantage (ITV)

His pro partner quickly shushed him, jokingly sweeping any mishaps under the carpet.

It's then that host Phillip Schofield brought up the fact some viewers will believe the contestant has an advantage to others, due to being a trained dancer like fellow contestant Brendan Cole.

Phil had said: "Chris, there will be people, they said it last week with Brendan, who say that these guys are dancers, it's got to be an advantage."

Regan was surprised by the feedback, and even confessed to making a couple of mistakes (ITV)

Chris disagreed with this, responding in front of Regan: "You have got to learn to skate first of all, and that's the biggest hurdle everybody has to get over. It seems like Regan has managed to learn to skate."

Fellow judge Ashley went on: "At this point we have seen lots of dancers on the ice, we have seen a lot of people who can skate well, but I don't know if I've ever seen anybody who can translate movement into ice skating quite like you.

"We thought we'd seen the best week one ever, and I think you just upped the bar for him."

Dancing On Ice airs Sundays at 6:30pm on ITV.