Week 3: Is it ‘thirty’ or bust?

At the end of Movie Week, the ‘2026 Leaderboard’ on Strictly Scoreboard shows us that only three dance partnerships have broken the magical ‘thirty’ point barrier this series.

Week	Partnership	Score	Dance Style
1	John Nellis & Katya	31	Foxtrot
2	Delta Goodrem & Kai	30	American Smooth
2	Graeme Hall & Lauren	31	Waltz

For this week’s article, I thought I would look back at our previous 23 Strictly champions to see how long it took each of them to receive their first score in the ‘thirties’

Routine 1: ‘Starting off with a bang’

It’s often said that Strictly viewers prefer to back contestants who start off under the radar enabling them to experience ‘the journey’; however, there are six instances of successful partnerships who got off to a flying start.

Indeed, Abbey, Kelvin, Hamza and Karen (along with Mark Ramprakash) are the only five contestants to top the week one leaderboard before going on to win the Glitterball.

Series	Partnership	Routine 1 score	Routine 1 dance style
5	Alesha Dixon & Matthew	31	Rumba
8	Kara Tointon & Artem	30	Cha Cha
11	Abbey Clancy & Aljaz	32	Waltz
17	Kelvin Fletcher & Oti	32	Samba
20	Hamza Yassin & Jowita	34	Foxtrot
23	Karen Carney & Carlos	31	Jive

Routine 2: ‘It Takes Two’

Next, we have ten partnerships who required a second routine to break the ‘thirty’ barrier. It could be argued that we have a few ‘ballroom boys’ in this group, as Darren, Mark, Louis, Jay & Bill all scored their first ‘thirty’ with a ballroom style.

Series	Partnership	Routine 2 score	Routine 2 dance style
1	Natasha Kaplinsky & Brendan	31	Quickstep
2	Jill Halfpenny & Darren	32	Rumba
3	Darren Gough & Lilia	30	Quickstep
4	Mark Ramprakash & Karen	32	Tango
6	Tom Chambers & Camilla	33	Jive
7	Chris Hollins & Ola	30	Rumba
10	Louis Smith & Flavia	30	Viennese Waltz
13	Jay McGuiness & Aliona	31	Waltz
18	Bill Bailey & Oti	32 (adjusted from 24/30)	Quickstep
21	Ellie Leach & Vito	31	Foxtrot

Routine 3: ‘Third time lucky’

This group of seven partnerships took a little bit longer to get going, managing to score a ‘thirty’ at their third attempt. Three of them made their breakthrough when dancing the Jive.

Series	Partnership	Routine 3 score	Routine 3 dance style
9	Harry Judd & Aliona	33	Jive
12	Caroline Flack & Pasha	33.6 (adjusted from 42/50)	Rumba
14	Ore Oduba & Joanne	35	American Smooth
15	Joe McFadden & Katya	32	Viennese Waltz
16	Stacey Dooley & Kevin	32	Jive
19	Rose Ayling Ellis & Giovanni	36	Foxtrot
22	Chris McCausland & Dianne	30	Jive

The eagle-eyed amongst you will have noticed that every single one of our Strictly champions achieved at least one score of 30 or better by the end of their third routine!

Which of the eleven remaining 2026 partnerships who haven’t yet breached the ‘thirty barrier’ will be able to do so in week three? For those who don’t, is it fair for us to completely rule them out of Glitterball contention?

Slow and steady (almost) wins the race

I can provide a little bit of positive news to those who are unable to score ‘thirty’ this weekend; as there are ten previous partnerships that were able to reach the final, despite making an unspectacular start.

Series	Partnership	Highest score from their first three routines
1	Christopher Parker & Hanna	23
2	Julian Clary & Erin	27
10	Dani Harmer & Vincent	29
10	Kimberley Walsh & Pasha	29
12	Mark Wright & Karen	28
12	Simon Webbe & Kristina	27
13	Georgia May Foote & Giovanni	27
13	Katie Derham & Anton	28
17	Emma Barton & Anton	27
20	Fleur East & Vito	29

Style over substance?

So, which dance style should partnerships want to perform in their first three weeks to maximize their chance of scoring a ‘thirty’? I suspect you won’t be surprised by the number one ‘choice’.

• Cach will no doubt have been ‘(street) dancing with joy’ to learn that he will be dancing a Couple’s Choice routine this week.
• Jaime having had, statistically, the two trickiest dance styles so far (Tango followed by Cha Cha), has now been given an excellent opportunity to get over her dance-off disappointment, with a Viennese Waltz in week three.
• The historic data would suggest that Will (Waltz) and Dani (Tango) are likely to have the toughest challenge this week to achieve some ‘thirty dancing’!