Strictly’s Graziano di Prima breaks World Record in It Takes Two Pro Challenge

The 25-year-old dancer, who joined the Strictly cast last year, went up against the other Strictly professionals to see who could achieve the most Botafogo Samba steps in 30 seconds.

In order for the step to qualify, the Pro Challenge panel (Strictly judge Craig Revel Horwood, former Strictly champion Flavia Cacace-Mistry and official Guinness World Record adjudicator Mark McKinley) were looking for a clear step across to the side and then a replacement of weight. If the step did not include all of these points, it was disqualified.

Graziano won the challenge with an impressive 90 steps, with both he and second place dancer Giovanni Pernice (80 Botafogo steps) beating the record set in November 2011 by former Strictly Come Dancing pro dancer Artem Chigvintsev, who achieved 79 steps in 30 seconds.

Strictly favourite Kevin Clifton came third place with 73, and Amy Dowden topped the female pros after achieving 71.

Towards the bottom end of the table, Nadiya Bychkova scored 20 steps, while Anton du Beke trailed behind with just six.

The full leaderboard is below.

POSITION
NAME
NUMBER OF BOTAFOGOS

1
Graziano Di Prima
90

2
Giovanni Pernice
80

3
Kevin Clifton
73

4
Amy Dowden
71

5
Nancy Xu

Luba Mushtuk
70

70

6
Dianne Buswell
64

7
AJ Pritchard
63

8
Johannes Radebe
49

9
Neil Jones
44

10
Gorka Marquez
38

11
Katya Jones
36

12
Nadiya Bychkova
20

13
Anton du Beke
6

It’s been a good year for Graziano; paired alongside Johannes Radebe, the two pros performed Strictly’s first same-sex dance together earlier in this series.

Speaking about the performance, he wrote on Twitter: “Representation always matters! Unforgettable moment, loved to dance with you.”

Strictly: It Takes Two airs on BBC Two weekdays at 6.30pm. The final episode of the series will start at 6pm on Friday 13th December.