Dancing on Ice star Libby Clegg: ‘I’m not trying to be inspirational’

Someone who’s in a solid position heading into week three is Paralympic athlete Libby Clegg, who topped the leaderboard in week two and left head judge Christopher Dean choked up after her performance, which was deemed ‘inspirational’.

But Clegg, who has Macular Dystrophy disease and is registered blind, says it was never her intention to be inspirational to others.

“Oh definitely not!” she told RadioTimes.com. “I never really try and inspire people as I feel like that actually takes away from being inspiring. But I just try and do things to the best of my ability and be positive about things and have a really good outlook.

“I do to try and challenge myself really, and find what the limit is.”

The Rio Paralympics Gold Medal winner, 29, added that she had received messages from other visually impaired people since her performance on the show.

“They were saying how proud they are that someone else is sort of flying the flag a bit,” Clegg explained. “It is really nice that hopefully they can be inspired, and realise they can be successful and achieve things they want to achieve, no matter how big and small it is.”

Clegg’s dance partner, Mark Hanretty, said he was thrilled with Clegg’s progress, after initially being “terrified” at training someone registered blind.

“I thought this was going to be the biggest challenge I’d ever had, and it’s turned out to be the best experience,” he said. “I’ve learned not to be so judgemental about disability, but also, I forget sometimes just because Libby’s blind, it shouldn’t disguise the fact she’s a world-record holding, Paralympic gold medallist as well.

“While she cant see she brings in other amazing attributes. I have preconceived ideas, as I’m sure most people do, about disability and blindness and what I see is Libby doesn’t have a limitation of what she’s capable of, she doesn’t allow the label to be a limitation. I wish everyone can see what I see in that.”

Dancing on Ice continues Sundays on ITV.