Torvill And Dean Olympic Flame Gala At Nottingham National Ice Centre REVIEW

Photo © Nottingham Confidential

"How are we Nottingham? This is going to be such a fun experience...You will witness something this evening...you are going to say to your children, to your grandchildren, your grandchildren's grandchildren, I always remember, being in the arena, at that moment, when the Olympic torch came in and something very special happened," declared host Robin Cousins, skating deft circles around the National Ice Centre to a cheering, capacity and totally Olympically-psyched Nottingham crowd.

And it was no over-sentimentalised exaggeration of the enormity of this event for Nottingham, starring its own ultimate world-renowned home-grown legends Torvill and Dean, on the site where they started their own Olympic dreams, in front of a home-crowd bursting and ready to pop with local pride. With a cast of hundreds, including multi-coloured-lycra-clad ice-skating teams, pairs, teenagers, kiddiwinks, ice hockey and speed skaters performing to the Hucknall and Linby Mining Community Brass and a shimmering Lace City Chorus all mixed up with a special skating guest appearance by a beaming Rosemary Conley, the gala built up a thrilled and chilled frenzy of excitement for the arrival of the Olympic Torch and The Dance We Were All Waiting For...

Arriving almost exactly on schedule, despite a day of travelling through the region's torrential downpours, thunderstorms and head-numbing humidity, the Olympic torch was brought into the National Ice Centre to a more-welcomely-thunderous and ecstatic reception and transferred to a fit and still very fantastic-looking Torvill and Dean who swept onto the ice with that familiar, elegant and awe-inspiring ease accompanied by a gorgeously-glittering Nottingham Synchronized Skating Academy ensemble.

Photo © Nottingham Confidential

To a very emotionally-rousing and exhilarating soaring musical-score, Tovill and Dean danced with the Olympic Flame across the National Ice Centre in a thrillingly-beautiful, elegant, stylish and very moving routine. Performed, orchestrated and choreographed with fantastic elan, this truly was an extremely special event for Torvill and Dean fans, for the Olympics and for the whole torch flame relay journey but most of all and above all, this was very much Nottingham's moment, when everything came together in an unforgettable and magical event right here in the city where we live.

A spectacle of grace, glamour and great gravitas, both heart-swelling and eye-welling, confidentially, hands down and heads up, this was without doubt the Nottingham event of the year, if not the decade, Torvill and Dean, your home town loves you forever. And if you haven't seen it yet, you can catch the whole amazing routine in our own Nottingham Confidential video footage in the link below.

You can also see lots more photos of the whole Gala event in our photo album on our Facebook page here