Adam Peaty: I am doing Strictly for the normal guys who want to learn to dance

Olympian Adam Peaty has said he is competing in Strictly Come Dancing for “all the normal guys” who want to improve their dancing.

This weekend the first contestant will be eliminated from the BBC celebrity dancing competition following a public vote.

Scores from last week’s show will be combined with the judges’ totals from this week ahead of the first elimination.

Television presenter AJ Odudu currently sits top of the leaderboard with 34, while Dragons’ Den star Sara Davies is bottom with 17.

Olympic gold medallist Peaty and his professional partner Katya Jones will perform a quickstep to Jet’s Are You Going To Be My Girl on Saturday night.

Peaty said he is taking part in the competition for “all the normal guys out there”.

He said “everyone” wants to be able to dance, adding: “Some of my mates don’t dance because they haven’t got the confidence or the charisma.

“Everyone wants to dance but everyone has to learn.”

Peaty added: “I want to show people that even if you’re a muscly guy or a big guy, you don’t have to be agile. That will come, I think.”

Peaty said he “never, ever thought” he would be able to achieve what he did last week on the dancefloor, when he was given a score of 30 by the judges.

He added his feet are in “a lot of pain” due to training.

“I literally couldn’t fit my feet in my shoes because they were swollen,” he said.

This week McFly singer Tom Fletcher and his partner Amy Dowden will be absent from the competition after testing positive for Covid-19.

Rugby star Ugo Monye and Oti Mabuse will also be tackling a quickstep, to The Jive Aces’ Bring Me Sunshine, while comedian Robert Webb and Dianne Buswell will tango to La Cumparsita by Machiko Ozawa and Great British Bake Off star John Whaite will do a cha cha to Starstruck by Years & Years with his partner Johannes Radebe.

Strictly Come Dancing will air at 6.45pm on Saturday on BBC One.