It’s the most exciting time of the year for Strictly fans, as fifteen brand new partnerships prepare to head to the dance floor to perform their first scoring routines.

In this article I thought it would be interesting to find out which professional dancers have earned the highest average score when dancing a ‘first routine’ with a celebrity contestant.  Will these results give us any clues as to who is likely to be picking up the series 24 Glitterball in twelve weeks’ time?

Before we start, a few points to clarify…

  • In this analysis, I have only included professionals who have performed a ‘first dance’ with three or more celebrities
  • I have not included first routines in which a professional ‘stood in’ for another pro who was injured (such as Lauren’s dances with JB Gill, or Kevin’s dances with Alex Scott)
  • The scores awarded in the ‘three judge’ series of series 18, have been converted to the equivalent ‘40 point’ total, to allow a fair comparison between all series
     

So, let’s start off by looking at the professional dancers who are involved with this current series.  After excluding our five new arrivals, plus Alexis, Julian and Lauren (who have all had fewer than three dance partners), this leaves us with eleven professionals to study.

Pos Pro Dancer Week 1 Avg
1 Carlos GuCarlos Gu 28.3
2 Kai WiddringtonKai Widdrington 26.5
3 Vito CoppolaVito Coppola 26.3
4 Nikita KuzminNikita Kuzmin 25.2
5 Katya JonesKatya Jones 24.9
6 Aljaz SkorjanecAljaz Skorjanec 24.8
7 Nancy XuNancy Xu 24.5
8 Amy DowdenAmy Dowden 23.7
9 Dianne BuswellDianne Buswell 23.6
10 Jowita PrzystalJowita Przystal 20.5
11 Neil JonesNeil Jones 19.0

So, an encouraging sign for Jaime Winstone, as our reigning champion Carlos tops this list.  To date, he has two impressive ‘opening scores’ of 31 with Molly Rainford & Karen Carney, sandwiched with a respectable score of 23 with Angela Scanlon.

In close pursuit is Kai; with his ‘week one’ highlight undoubtedly being the Jive with AJ Odudu that earned 34 points.

Rounding off the ‘top three’ is Vito who has scored 29 or better in a ‘first dance’ with three of his four dance partners.

At the other end of the table, sadly Neil won’t have the opportunity to improve on his disappointing average this year.  

More surprising perhaps, is seeing former champion Jowita join Neil in the ‘relegation zone’.  After starting with an impressive score of 34 when partnering Hamza, Jowita’s ‘week one’ score has declined in each following year (21 with Jody Cundy, 17 with Pete Wicks, and 10 with Ross King).  I think it’s fair to assume that Lawrence will put an end to that particular trend on Saturday!

So how do our current pros stack up on the all-time ‘first performance’ list?  Whenever there was a tie in the average score, I gave the advantage to the professional who has had the higher number of Strictly dance partners.

Pos Pro Dancer Week 1 Avg
1 Carlos GuCarlos GuSeries winner 28.3
2  Ian Waite 28.2
3  Janette Manrara 27.2
=4 Giovanni PerniceGiovanni PerniceSeries winner 27.0
=4  Artem ChigvintsevSeries winner 27.0
=4  Katya Virshilas 27.0
7 Kai WiddringtonKai Widdrington 26.5
8 Vito CoppolaVito CoppolaSeries winner 26.3
9  Robin Windsor 26.0
10 Johannes RadebeJohannes Radebe 25.9
11  James Jordan 25.4
12  AJ Pritchard 25.3
13 Nikita KuzminNikita Kuzmin 25.2
=14 Katya JonesKatya JonesSeries winner 24.9
=14  Kevin CliftonSeries winner 24.9
=16 Aljaz SkorjanecAljaz SkorjanecSeries winner 24.8
=16  Erin Boag 24.8
=16  Pasha KovalevSeries winner 24.8
19 Nancy XuNancy Xu 24.5
20  Darren BennettSeries winner 24.3
=21  Vincent Simone 24.0
=21  Matthew CutlerSeries winner 24.0
23  Natalie Lowe 23.9
24 Amy DowdenAmy Dowden 23.7
25 Dianne BuswellDianne BuswellSeries winner 23.6
26 Oti MabuseOti MabuseSeries winnerSeries winner 23.4
27  Camilla DallerupSeries winner 23.3
28  Aliona VilaniSeries winnerSeries winner 23.2
29 Gorka MarquezGorka Marquez 23.0
30  Kristina Rihanoff 22.9
31  Karen HardySeries winner 22.8
=32  Brendan ColeSeries winner 22.6
=32  Ola JordanSeries winner 22.6
34  Flavia CacaceSeries winner 22.3
35  Lilia KopylovaSeries winner 21.7
36  Iveta Lukosiute 21.3
=37 Nadiya BychkovaNadiya Bychkova 21.0
=37 Graziano Di PrimaGraziano Di Prima 21.0
=39  Anton Du Beke 20.5
=39 Jowita PrzystalJowita PrzystalSeries winner 20.5
41 Karen HauerKaren Hauer 20.3
42 Neil JonesNeil Jones 19.0
=43 Luba MushtukLuba Mushtuk 17.3
=43  Nicole Cutler 17.3

When compiling this list, I noticed the following…

  • Carlos will need to receive a score of 28 points, or better, on Saturday to maintain his place ahead of Ian Waite
  • Only three of the top thirteen professionals on this list are female.  Does this highlight that in general, the dance ability of male celebrities is more varied than with female celebrities?
  • Only four of the top thirteen professionals on this list have a Glitterball trophy in their possession.  Perhaps this is more evidence that viewers like giving their support to contestants who start their campaign ‘under the radar’ before commencing on the infamous ‘Strictly journey’?
  • The sweet spot for overall success as a professional is to average an ‘opening score’ somewhere between 22 and 25 points. Fourteen of the 21 pros who have managed this have eventually gone on to win themselves a Glitterball.  This would appear to be a positive sign for both Nancy & Amy, who are the only pros in this year’s competition with an average currently in this scoring range.