Strictly Come Dancing: Krishnan Guru-Murthy gives positive health update ahead of week 3

Virgin Radio

7 Oct 2023, 10:35

Strictly Come Dancing star Krishnan Guru-Murthy has shared how he’s feeling as the intense rehearsals continue into week 3, otherwise known as Movie Week. 

The Channel 4 newsreader has been open about his “various health issues” that almost stood in the way of joining the BBC competition, including genetic heart condition hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

His medical conditions had made intense training challenging, as he must be cautious about pushing his heart rate into the ‘danger zone’, but speaking exclusively to virginradio.co.uk, Krishnan revealed that he’s not feeling the effects as much as he thought he would. 

“It's not been the issue I thought it was yet,” the news anchor admitted.  “I've actually stopped wearing… I was wearing my Apple Watch just to sort of keep an eye on my heart rate, and I stopped bothering, I’ve gone back to my nice watch.”

For dancing pro partner Lauren Oakley, she’s not had to change up her way of choreographing routines because of Krishnan’s health, but rather his “fun side.”

She explained: “When I choreograph for Krishnan, I want to bring out the sides of his personality that fit most in that dance, because even though he's a news anchor, and we all see him really seriously, when I saw him in the training room, I could see that he's got this really fun side, which I wanted to put into the choreography. 

“I kind of choreograph around what comes naturally to Krishnan. And so then of course, he's going to do it to the best of his ability.”

Krishnan previously shared how his health conditions actually spurred him on to participate in Strictly after years of being asked. 

He told The Guardian: “I’m really starting to have this realisation: you have to get the absolute most out of life before you’re decrepit."

The broadcaster added: “They’ve been asking me to do these sorts of shows for years. What if I kept saying no? It might not be physically possible for me to do it now – that remains to be seen. But it certainly won’t be possible in five years.”

Tonight (Saturday 7th October) Krishnan and Lauren will be hoping to impress the judges with the Charleston set to Money Money from Cabaret for Strictly’s Movie Week. 

Last week (1st October) it was West End star Layton Williams who topped the leaderboard with their Quickstep to Puttin’ On The Ritz by Gregory Porter. The pair scored a total of 36 after receiving nine out of 10 points from each of the judges.

Strictly Come Dancing continues tonight (7th October) at 6:20pm on BBC One and Player.