Former Olympian and Strictly Come Dancing star Sam Quek has revealed which of her fellow contestants she wants to win the 20th season of the show.
The 36-year-old sports broadcaster won a gold medal for her hockey performance for Great Britain at the Rio Olympics in 2016. She then went on to present BBC’s Question of Sport, before joining the popular dancing contest earlier this year.
Quek was partnered with Celebrity Big Brother finalist Nikita Kuzmin, and was left “gutted” after becoming the sixth contestant to be eliminated.
During her time on the show, she forged close bonds with her peers but admitted that the experience was an “emotional roller coaster”.
“I found it so much harder than Olympic training,” she told The Independent.
”People are shocked when I say that but physically it was so different. With hockey it’s agility, explosiveness, strength, power, skill, stick and ball.
“With Strictly, the movements are precise, it’s elegant, it’s soft, it’s still strong, but it’s a different type of strength, which I struggled with for the first few weeks.”
Quek, who finished fourth on I’m a Celebrity in 2016, said that the show was more difficult than her time in the jungle.
Speaking about who she would like to win the competition, she said, “For me, it’s got to be Chris [McCausland]”.
She added, “There’s this debate about his standup but when you watch him, you forget he’s blind.
“He’s a good person and you know what, he’s working just as hard, if not harder than everyone else.”
McCausland has admitted that he believes the other couples are “better” than him, and his partner Dianne Buswell admitted that she was told she wouldn’t go far on the show once she’d been assigned him as a partner.
“I think Diane has been fantastic with him,” Quek continued. “Everyone always says, who do you want to win?
“But actually it’s, it’s, it’s the pro as well and I think Chris and Diane deserve to win. It’s about the improvement as well. The journey that you’ve both been on.
”Plus he’s a Liverpool and Liverpool fan and a scouser you’ve got that loyalty there as well.”
Responding to news about Towie star Pete Wicks facing death threats for his progress in the competition, Quek called trolls sending hate “pathetic and toxic”.
As chaperones were introduced for the first time this year, following investigations into inappropriate treatment of contestants on the show, Quek gave her verdict on the experience.
“To be honest, I can’t say what it was like before because I didn’t experience it without a chaperone,” she said. “It was fine. We were laughing and joking with them. It was just another person in the room. More often not, you’d have a crew in there with you anyway. It didn’t really make a difference.”
The final for Strictly Come Dancing will air on BBC One and BBC iPlayer on Saturday 14 December at 7pm.
