James Cracknell’s biggest disappointed about his ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ exit is that his kids won’t be able to see him training.
The former Olympic rower – who has children Croyde, Trixie and Kiki – is gutted the youngsters didn’t get to come and see him rehearse this week after he was eliminated from the show over the weekend, and he was looking forward to them meeting his pro parnter Luba Mushtuk.
He said: "As much as I think rowing is very good, my kids aren’t that into it. But they are into this. For them to see me, they knew I would be very bad anyway.
"The only really disappointing thing was they were going to come to rehearsals this week, and so they don’t get to. They were looking forward to meeting Luba."
James damaged his brain’s frontal lobes after he was hit at 70mph by a tanker while cycling in America in 2010, and while he admits the injury has affected his confidence, he doesn’t think he would’ve done that well on ‘Strictly’ even before the incident.
He said: "It was [fun]. One of the reasons I did it, there are actually probably two reasons, a lot of the things I’ve done I know I’m going to be OK at, sporting and endurance, but I knew I was going to be bad at it.
"But I think there’s a block that people have, I know I especially do, of being afraid to look stupid.
"That’s a big hurdle to get over … the fear of putting yourself out there. I knew I wouldn’t be the best dancer in the world, I now have proof at least.
"But putting yourself in that position is actually quite a good thing to do in life.
"I don’t think I would have been a dancer before … with anything related to the brain, you look OK and people think you are OK.
"One thing is it definitely affects your confidence. One thing you need from ‘Strictly’ is massive confidence to put yourself out there … I would be lying to say there was a natural talent here before the accident that suddenly got lost."
James joked he may as well have "not bothered" dancing to impress judge Craig Revel Horwood, because the panellist scored him two points for putting his shoes on, but nothing else for his routine.
Speaking on ‘Lorraine’, he added: "I spoke to Craig actually before the first show. He said, ‘You get two points for putting your shoes on,’ and then he gave me two points.
"I was like, ‘I may as well have not bothered dancing.’ "
James Cracknell ‘disappointed’ kids cannot see his Strictly sessions
