Torvill & Dean: In from the cold

For some, Ravel's Bolero conjures up an image of Dudley Moore attempting to seduce Bo Derek in 10. For many, it invokes a memory of greater potency: that of Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean skating to a gold medal at the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo.

If ever there was a moment when a British sporting triumph captivated the nation, this was it. An astounding 24 million viewers were glued to their televisions on that Valentine's Day as T&D broke the traditional rules of competition ice dancing and scored 12 perfect sixes, including all nine for artistic impression.

They are unlikely to create a similar impact when they host Dancing on Ice, ITV's edgier version of Strictly Come Dancing, which starts this week, but it may serve as a reminder of their achievement in Sarajevo.

Both born in Nottingham, (Torvill in 1957, Dean in 1958), they began skating separately from the ages of eight (Torvill) and 10 (Dean). Having achieved moderate success with other partners they came together in 1975. They were a perfectly suburban couple; Dean had joined the police as a 16-year-old cadet and Torvill was an insurance clerk.

In 1978, they came fourth in their first European championships. As teenagers, they slid, danced and glided their way through national, European and, finally, world competitions, gaining respectable placings. In 1981, with the help of a grant from Nottingham City Council, they gave up their day jobs and spent more time on the ice. In 1981, they won the European championships for the first time.

On dry land they were ordinary, mundane mortals; on ice they were gods of grace and symmetry.

For the next four years, they were the world's greatest ice dancers, winning every championship they entered, hauling the sport of ice dancing into the limelight. Scanning the lists of ice dancing champions before and after them, one thing is clear: they are the only Anglo-Saxons amid a sea of Russians, and the first non-Russian world champions since 1969.

Dean was the creative engine, dreaming up complex patterns and dances for which Torvill found the techniques. They were easy to get on with, and charming under day-to-day circumstances, but there is evidence that Dean was a hard taskmaster.

"He was quite a martinet on the ice," says T&D's first biographer, John Hennessy. "He got quite cross when things didn't go right." Nonetheless, Dean deferred to Torvill's technical expertise and he often took his cues from her in performance. Their compatibility and innovation revolutionised ice dancing and overturned the cool conventional technique of the Russians.

A major component of their on-ice mystique, spectacularly illustrated in the sensual and erotic Bolero, was the question of their off-rink relationship. Their technical achievements aside, the secret of their power was that they created the illusion of the perfect relationship, physically harmonious and deeply romantic. Various inquisitors have probed their partnership without success. Perhaps their greatest trick was to sustain the mystery of it.

In 1994, Torvill said: "We were innocents in a little, cocooned world. A lot of the time we clung to each other because we were lonely." Although she admitted having a crush on Dean in the early years, Torvill said later: "My partnership with Christopher was like a marriage without any sex."

Hennessy said Dean told him that they "fell in love and fell out again. I never saw anything to suggest their relationship was anything other than professional". Dean said recently: "It's very hard for other people to understand what we have. It's a unique partnership. We are so tied together that we are almost a brand name."

Like the doomed lovers of Bolero, destined never to be together, Torvill and Dean exemplify the power of platonic romance. The magnificent British ice dancers John Curry and Robin Cousins are remembered for their solo achievements, but T&D hold a stronger place in British hearts because they somehow symbolise the perfect marriage.

The year after their triumph in Sarajevo, they turned professional and embarked on a series of world tours, creating and choreographing shows, including Ice Escapades, and Fire and Ice. They have also worked on film and video projects and trained and taught the next generation of ice dancers, including the Canadian brother and sister, Isabelle and Paul Duchesnay, who skated for France at the Albertville Olympics in 1992, taking the silver medal. Dean married Isabelle Duchesnay in 1991 but they divorced two years later.

Torvill had married American Phil Christiansen, a rock sound engineer in 1990 and moved to East Sussex. In 1994, Dean married American figure-skater Jill Trenary and moved to Colorado Springs. They have two sons, Jack Robert, seven, and Sam Colin, five.

Perhaps the single greatest mistake T&D made was returning to amateur competition for the 1994 Olympics at Lillehammer in Norway, where they won the bronze. Their disappointment - as well as that of their fans - was palpable and their hopes of repeating the golden moment were dashed. For T&D, there was no going back. They announced their retirement in 1998 and were each appointed OBE a year later.

They still engage in the occasional bout of choreography and coaching, but they are philosophical about their absence from the world stage. Torvill has said: "In the end, you have to decide if you want to carry on being famous, which means you kind of hide away most of the time, or if you want to join the rest of the world, to be normal again."

Their legacy can be seen at the ice rinks at Somerset House, the Natural History Museum - where they put on an impromptu display just before Christmas - and many others up and down the country, although no one from the UK has emerged to take their place in world competition.

T&D, now in their late 40s, have financial security (both are millionaires), the unfaded glory of that night in Sarajevo and a miscellany of eccentric tributes. Among the more banal are having the Nottingham housing estate Tordean named after them (the equivalent of calling your house Dunskatin), and the freedom of the city of Nottingham where, in the inscription in the city council offices, Torvill's first name is misspelt as Jane.

Ironically, the Russians have paid them the most suitable tribute. In July last year, Baltic Reefer Lines of St Petersburg named two refrigerated cargo ships in their honour, the MV Torvill and the MV Dean, vessels, like the lovers in Bolero, destined to remain linked forever yet eternally apart.