Strictly‘s Tasha Ghouri has admitted she is feeling pressure to get a perfect 40 from the judges after coming close so many times.
The Love Island star and her pro partner Aljaz Skorjanec are among the frontrunners in the BBC ballroom show, wowing the judges and viewers with their skills on the dancefloor every week. But while they have been given impressive scores – including 39 on three occasions – they have yet to score the top mark of 40.
Ghouri admitted on spin-off It Takes Two that she keeps trying to “push” for the score, as Skorjanec joked that at bedtime “all I can see is a 39 in front of my face”.
Ghouri and Skorjanec were on the sofa with Janette Manrara – who Skorjanec is married to – and the presenter raised the fact that many Strictly fans believe the pair have deserved 40 out of 40 for some dances.
She asked if that added to the pressure, and Ghouri admitted: “I think a little bit it does, you know, because even I want the 40 as well. You know, I am trying to push for that perfect score and every week I am trying to push myself more, trying to deliver more as well… it’s just there at our fingertips, it’s just reaching it and trying to grab it!”
“And it’s a little bit of pressure now we are close to the quarter-finals, so it is just getting there,” she went on.
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Skorjanec joked: “I haven’t slept for five weeks because of it. That’s all I can think of at night and the middle of the night sweating and all I can see is a 39 in front of my face.”
“Nightmares!” he laughed.
Ghouri also told how much she’d loved Blackpool Week, where the pair scored one of their 39s for their Paso Doble.
“It was just incredible being in that ballroom, it was so grand, the audience… it was just a whole different feeling, so magical,” she said. “It truly was so special.”
“I am going to look back and be so grateful,” she added.
This weekend the pair will perform an American Smooth Foxtrot, and pro Skorjanec said it was a “beautiful, beautiful number”. “I absolutely adore every single step that we have put together,” he shared.
Strictly: It Takes Two airs on BBC Two at 6.30pm, Monday to Friday.
Strictly Come Dancing airs on BBC One at 7.05pm on Saturday.
