Jessica appeared on Strictly Come Ice Dancing, and even though she finished second she was by far the best celebrity on that. With only weeks of training she was very good. So I reckon she is going to do really well in DOI because they train much longer.

Ray Quinn was a junior ballroom dancing champion, so he is gonna look good on the ice and move really well.

I definatly think these two will be the ones to beat. I think maybe Gemma Bissix might be good as well.

I agree; Ray, Jessica and Gemma may be the ones to look out for .

I was also thinking Zoe, Roxanne, and surprisingly, Ellery.

I agree with this

Ray i'm expecting to be the early fave after the 1st show; he is a very good ice skater and can dance so he's got a hell of a head start on the others

i saw an old strictly come dancing on ice on watch over the xmas holidays and jessica was on there. said she had ice skating training as child and she was quite good. show was a few years old

yes i have a feeling jessica will do well.
One of the other females even commented on jessica being the best,

It would be funny if michelle heaton won Celeb bb and she won DOI. Methinks a liberty x reunion would be on the cards,

Yes, it was Gemma .

Ray has a headstart on the others. I watched him iceskating on the Xtra Factor once. He was excellent. He will be an early frontrunner.

Article here

http://www.*****************/article...-the-best.html

Link won't work

Go to google and the heading is 'Jessica Taylor thinks Ray Quinn's the best'

Click the slidehow to see the contestants and their partners

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage...cle2096124.ece

The only one I'll be looking out & rooting for will be Mark Fowler.. I mean Todd Carthy!

I think Ray is going to be the Chris Fountain of this series the one who can do all the fast spins ect.

You mean Todd Carty

When Ray was interviewed on This Morning, he didn't admit to been able to ice skate !! So as a dancer and a skater it should be a foregone conclusion that he'll be in the final. At least Chris Fountain who got all the hassle admitted he'd done ice hockey years before, at the start of the show, he never tried to hide anything

Ray can rollerblade which probably does help with technical things and stability as it can quite often translate on to ice. Coleen Nolan also said when asked if everyone is at the same standard that Ray isn't, he is way up there above every else so I think he'd be wanting to top that axel Chris Fountain keeps failing to do properly!

Having lessons like Jessica did when she was younger must be a huge advantage too, even if she hasn't done it since she'll know the basics. I image it's like riding a bike, you never quite forget.

I hardly think Ray's ice skating expeditions to Deeside as a kid (and thats all he done) counts anywhere near as much as having done Ice Hockey - Ray has never hid that he was British Champion in many forms of dance including Ballroom and Latin either

I think you'll find he's done more than(skating expeditions as a kid). If you'd seen him on the X Factor Extra show you would have seen him skating quite professionally as ArtyAttack commented on in an earlier post on this thread ! At least ice hockey is an entirely different discipline to ice hockey, as Chris Dean commented Chris Fountain fell over more than anybody when he first started on the show

Sorry I meant to say ice hockey is a different discipline to ICE DANCING

I'm waiting to see him actually skate before passing any judgement.

I see lots of people skating at the open air rinks in London and some of them can be described as quite good as they have been along to these rinks every year and possibly their local rinks. They can skate round in circles quite competently, and even look quite professional when doing so - but I would imagine that if you asked them to start doing compulsory figures and jumps which require proper and GOOD technique they would fall apart.

You need proper lessons to be able to do what they are required to do on DOI, and if any celeb WAS considering doing the show - they would be awfully silly if they didn't at least have a couple of lessons first to see if they COULD do it.

From what I gather, Ray has done a lot of rollerblading as have a heck of a lot of youngsters - even my severely dyspraxic DD can move around quite competently on her rollerblades and she said it helped when she and a gang of her schoolmates went along to Gillingham to ice skate for the first time. If Ray was any good on his rollerblades I'd imagine he found the transition to ice fairly easy.

There was a very small ice rink in Liverpool (Silver Blades, Prescot Road) which closed down long before Ray would have been of an age to use it - and the nearest proper rink these days is Deeside - a major excursion from the city.

Having known Ray since he was a toddler can tell you it was just expeditions to the ice rink only - sorry no formal training in that discipline

Exactly!! That coupled with Ray competing all over the country in dancing almost weekly until joining Brookside, and even then he had swapped to Ballroom and Latin - he didnt have much time for anything else

Whatever his skating and dancing skills Ray is going to suffer to some extent for his small stature. I can't see him being able to handle major lifts very easily and, as the other guys get more competent, some of them have the physique to take on really spectacular lifts which always appeal to a mass TV audience.

Going to be a fascinating contest I reckon ... roll on Sunday!

I wasn't inferring he'd had formal training, all I said was I watched him on the extra factor, and he was a very competent skater!!

Agreed - he showed no fear on the ice which is have the battle really; I can also remember him being able to cover the ice quite fastly as well

I disagree. He is definitely playing his experience down. Chris Fountain received lots of criticism for less experience last year and Ray is this years ringer imo.

Well lets all hold judgement until we actually see them al in action on Sunday shall we??

As I said above being able to stay upright and skate around a small rink with your mates is fairly easy to do if you have good balance and confidence (especially if you can rollerblade already). Being able to participate in a formal routine with required moves in synch with a partner is a very different matter.

Chris played down his experience last year - his hockey experience meant he was already confident on the ice, not afraid of falling over, and able to stay upright, and move forward and back unassisted from the word go.

Compare the way he performed to how Greg Rusedski did (another one who had played ice hockey years before as a child) - or even David Seaman, another hockey jock. All were confident on the ice and could do the basics - but Chris was head and shoulders above them from the word go. The difference was that the other 2 didn't keep harping on about how their hockey experience didn't help.