Profession: Dancing on Ice pro and ice skating coach
Favourite food: Yoghurt
Age of first competition: 10 years old
Hometown: Glasgow
Biggest fear: Being unprepared
This week I had the pleasure of interviewing Mark Hanretty – most famous for his pro ice skater status on Dancing on Ice. My first impression of Mark was that he was vivacious, devoted to his sport and down right charming. His career has taken him to competing in the World Championships, dancing alongside Torvill and Dean and dislocating his shoulder during a live skate-off. “My name was instantly in hashtags” he told me, “ and I could hear my wife screaming from the couch at home”.
When he’s not twirling petrified celebrities around for ITV, he’s training ice skating stars of the future.
We sat down outside the changing rooms of Sheffield Ice Rink and Mark told me a little bit his skating world…
Where did you first start skating and when was it?
It was in the Lagoon Leisure Centre, Paisley, which was 15 minutes away from where I grew up and was just after the 1984 Olympics when Torvill and Dean came back.
So would you say that Torvill and Dean inspired you?
Totally. They came on TV and I became Torvill and Dean obsessive! I also hated the fact that the Russians beat them in the Olympics so took a great offence to all things Russian.
It must be very surreal then, that you’re working with them on Dancing on Ice?
It is. It’s very surreal because my whole life has been shaped out of watching them and now I’m working for them!
If you could ice skate anywhere in the world where would it be?
I’d love to go to Sun Valley, Idaho. It’s meant to be one of these perfect backdrop ice rinks. Any outdoor natural rink would be incredible to skate on. But to me it’s not really where the ice rink is because the best feeling for me is having a rink to myself with good music.
Who’s been your most influential teacher?
Hmmm, I’ve been lucky, they’ve all been important. I started off with free skating and my first teacher was John Christie. He was really helpful and very passionate and seemed to recognize my talent . I then had a few other coaches who fuelled my passion even more with their enthusiasm. I competed at junior level before switching to Ice Dance. All of my coaches were great but jimmy Young, in particular, was a teacher who was very selfless and gave up so many hours for all his skaters and I have a great deal of respect to him for what he taught and the amount of time he gave up for us.
What has been your best skating moment and your worst?
That’s a hard one. I just love skating every day. I was very lucky to take part in the closing ceremony of the Paralympic Games – I was put on off-ice skates, which were amazing, and as if it couldn’t get better I was dancing to Coldplay with the whole world watching. That was incredible! Some of my best memories have been on Dancing on Ice and of course day to day coaching with my pupils. In terms of worst skating moments, when I was younger I was in my desperation to do really, really well so I was a bad competitor! I was so over-eager that I ended up with some disastrous skating moments.
What are your top skating tips?
For me I have my golden rules and live by posture, knee bend and extension. They are very generic; very easy to comprehend and I’m sure any coach would agree that it can improve any skater. To me it’s the degree in which you do that. Having the most wonderful posture, beautiful knee bend and the best extension is what I see in some of the best Ice dancers out there. So it’s not what you do, it’s how you do it.
The Zamboni Ice resurfacer was approaching the end of its rounds, which signaled the end of our interview and the resuming of Mark’s coaching day. The last question I asked him was one of motivation and how to stay at a good level. He replied with a statement so true to every sport: “Always demand more of yourself ” he told me, “It’s easy to get complacent when the standard in Britain is lower than international levels. But at the end of the day you are competing with no one but yourself. Always, always push further.”
Twitter: @Mark_Hanretty