Sport on TV: Sue out in cold but boys from the white stuff back on form

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

Poor old Sue Barker. Last week she might have expected some days in the sun at the Australian Open in Melbourne, given that Murray mania was rearing its curly head again, but where did the BBC send her? Freezing Tallinn in Estonia, to cover the European Figure Skating Championships (BBC2, Sunday).

After a brief tour of the city's architectural delights, consisting mainly of monolithic Soviet-era office blocks, including the old KGB headquarters, she had to preside over John and Sinead Kerr's disappointing showing in the ice dancing; trouble with their twizzles did for the Scottish siblings, which bodes ill for their chances in the Winter Olympics at Vancouver next month.

Better news on the cold front later on in the afternoon, though, as Ski Sunday (BBC2) featured interviews with more realistic British Olympic hopefuls in the snowboarder Zoe Gillings and bobsleigh world champions Nicola Minichiello and Gillian Cooke. There were no re-runs of Cooke's recent bottom-baring "wardrobe malfunction" – you'll have to log on to YouTube for that – which last season's blokish revamp of the programme, seemingly produced by the tea boy from 'Top Gear' and obsessed with wizard pranks and Z-list celebrities, would have found hard to resist.

Happily, that format has been abandoned, and glory be, there was actually some top-rank skiing on show, notably the men's downhill at the Hahnenkamm, Kitzbuehel.

Like Formula One, downhill skiing would be duller without spectacular crashes, and Dancing on Ice (Sunday, ITV) would also be less fun without the chance of bum-freezing falls to enliven the action. The inclusion of Heather Mills and Daniella Westbrook among the contestants was a stroke of warped genius, by adding the frisson that not only might there be falls, but it was just possible that the odd body part (or in Heather's case, prosthetic body part) might come flying off during a particularly tricky manoeuvre.

It didn't happen, of course, but there's always next time. Spills and Mills – who needs to watch the best Europeans when we can have this?

But Sunday's champagne moment undoubtedly belonged to Greg Harlow, a pudgy 41-year-old sales manager from Ely with an uncanny resemblance to Ronnie Barker in 'Porridge'. Having won the Bowls World Indoor Singles Championship (BBC2) at the Potters Leisure Resort in Great Yarmouth ("The Wimbledon of bowls," according to the MC, but no sign of the other Barker) he launched into a flamboyant cartwheel of joy before announcing that he and his family would be celebrating with his customary victors' supper of "fizz 'n' chips".

Cork-popping class; with moves like that, he'll be snapped up by 'Dancing on Ice' before you know it.