Claudia Fragapane wants to incorporate the dance moves she’s learnt on ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ into her gymnastics floor routine.
The 19-year-old Olympic gymnast would love to win the ballroom and latin show with her professional partner AJ Pritchard but has admitted the fancy footwork and hip action she’s learnt taking part in the competition will stay with her forever – even if she doesn’t lift the famous glitterball trophy later this month – because it’ll help her when it comes performing in the gymnasium.
Speaking exclusively to BANG Showbiz, she said when asked if she and AJ will stay in contact after the show: "Definitely. AJ is definitely going to come and watch one of my competitions, he’ll probably watch my floor routines and be like, ‘Well you’re not doing this and you’re not doing a bit of the rumba.’ I’m going to incorporate a bit of the dancing technique into my gymnastics routines."
The dancing duo have spent almost every day together since the series kicked off in September and AJ – who only joined the show as a professional this year – thinks it’ll be weird being separated from the pint-sized star when the competition wraps up.
He explained: "I can’t think about it, it would just be so weird. I’ve been spending so much time with Claudia but it’s just been amazing. Training’s always a blast."