DOI champ slams judging panel

Former 'Dancing on Ice' winner Kyran Bracken has blasted this year's judging panel as a "turnoff".

The ex-rugby star - who won the ITV1 series in 2007 - claims this year's panel of Robin Cousins, Emma Bunton and Jason Gardiner is uninteresting and lacking in "tension" because only Robin is from a professional skating background.

He said: "Let me highlight my biggest turnoff this year - THE JUDGING! There is only one score and decision I acknowledge and that is Robin's. We now have two judges who vote on performance and one judge who votes on both skating and performance. In previous years they have had 60 per cent of the panel as skaters, now its only 33 per cent.

"Also, there is no tension, one vote and the next decides it, and Jason and Emma will always agree because that's all they seem to do on every show! Emma just repeats verbatim what the others say.(sic)"

In addition to criticising Emma, the 36-year-old sports-star hit out at Jason, who this week branded Karen Barber's opinion useless as she was no longer on the judging panel.

Writing on his Blue Room blog, Kyran added: "This was, without a shadow of a doubt, my favourite show of the series so far. From the incredible opening to Jason's jaw droppingly incredulous comment to Karen, accusing her of not being good enough to be on the panel. Then, to cap it all off, his feeble attempt to apologise.(sic)"

Jason took to twitter yesterday (08.02.11) to defend himself against his attack on Karen, who was removed from the judging panel for the first time this year.

He wrote: "Thank you to all of you who have sent me kind support during this rather precarious time. But there are others who are very disturbed indeed."