Would have been to use her rehearsal performance for judging and voting purposes two weeks ago. After all she had done just as much work as the others. Then she could have gone on to miss last week legitimately (had she been voted back), giving her seven days more recovery time and fulfilled SCD's criteria of missing one week only.

True but then we can suggest these things on hindsight - the producers were probably running about like headless chickens trying to make a decision that satisfied all the rules and missed that idea.

They should have built a sandpit for her in the middle of the dance floor and let her do the long jump.

And issued special '11' paddles to all the judges so they could do full justice to the occasion.

I thought the same at the time. Use her tango dress rehersal as the dance to be judged. But what would have happened if she had ended up in the dance off?

I think that this week (Sat 21st) no one should have been eliminated, thus making it a 3 couple final. The BBC don't know there left from their right.

The dance floor's not big enough for a runway + sand pit - wouldn't have worked.

I agree, its what they do in DWTS and it worked well.

At the very least they should have had a week with no eliminiation and scores/votes carried over to the next week.

Now we have to endure yet another sucky two couple final

Whithin 10 minutes of it happening people were already saying that on here .It was glaringly obvious that evening that they could have used that footage .

I still think they will keep the non elimination week till the semi final like last year.
There will be cries of 'unfair' every week until then no matter who is saved from it.

They didn't keep a non-elimination week until the final last year. They just had a problem with the scoring that they had to quickly fix by not eliminating anyone, and that can't happen this year because they changed the scoring system to prevent a repeat.

As for the OP's suggestion, I think people would have found it unfair to have two weeks where Jade didn't dance. Also, it's quite possible that delaying Jade's week off by a week would only have delayed her pulling out by a week rather than keeping her in the competition.

They could still do a carry-over later in the series.

I'm not holding out much hope for it, but it might happen.

The OP is making the assumption the routine was recorded in full....maybe it was...maybe it was`t....Even if it was the routine was a rehearsal without the pressure of "The Live Performance"....which would give her an advantage over the other contestants.....Personally I think Jade`s injury is a slightly more serious than she made out and she now realises the healing process needs to take place without the added stress of training...and that means resting her damaged ligament.Lets face it; professional footballers don`t train let alone play for week or in some cases months if they`v torn a ligament in the knee.....She may have been in denial at the time...I know her personal physio felt she was ok to Dance but who knows whats really going on.....Me included.

On ITT last night, Craig said that he had only seen a small bit of footage from the ITT programme, which indicates that full footage wasn't available.

As lovely as it would have been for Jade to be given longer, it didn't happen.

I hope Jade can come back and dance the tango in the final or Christmas special as Tess suggested.

The only problem with having a non elimination later on is that it would appear unfair on Ricky and Erin.

Indeed - also Phil and Katya who, taking all into consideration, were the ones most affected by the whole sequence of events.

The irony is wasted; thank your lucky starts that Jade, through injury, is no longer a threat to your favourite.

I would say my irony has hit the target pretty well on this evidence.

And I don't even want my 'favourite' to win...so I recommend you stop making lame, baseless assumptions.

Hey - if that assumption makes you happy, who am I to disillusion you?

What it is to have "20/20 hindsight."

Yes of course I had forgotten, Jade hasn't danced for two weeks. She should I suppose have gone back on the 14th. That should have been the non elimination round, which would have kept Phil and (the lovely) Katya in for another week.

Then on 21st it would have been business as usual.

I wondered about whether this would have worked, but I think viewing a live performance gives the judges a lot more information than would be seen on a recording, so it would be impossible to mark fairly. I'm often irritated by the camerawork on SCD, which frequently shows only the dancers' upper bodies - it's annoying not to be able to see their feet. The judges often comment on mistakes I've not seen on screen, and it's based on this that I suggest judging her performance on screen would not work.

If you read Jade's blog you will see the decision was really taken out of her hands.

The bottom line is that she was not able to dance again for the rest of the series because of the insurance risks.

Perhaps using the rehearsal footage isn't something in the rules, and so it would have seemed a questionable bendiing, in effect giving her two weeks grace rather than one the rules allow.

I think it's easy to miss out the fact that Jade is an Olympic athlete.

That's far more important than SCD, and she is too valuable and too talented to destroy her chances and her incredible talent on a tv dance show, whatever we think.

I miss her too, but damaging her brilliant career in athletics would be tragic.

I wished I could have seen her tango.