It's been a solid start to Strictly Come Dancing for Ellie Simmonds – even if she was docked a point for an illegal lift during Saturday night's episode.

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But the Paralympian has admitted she's been taken aback by just how gruelling the training process has been for the show, revealing to RadioTimes.com that she's been exhausted by the rehearsals.

"The training is tougher than expected," she said when asked which aspect of the show had been toughest so far. "We're training like 9am until 6pm... we're pushing our bodies – I'm aching all over. You can see I've got a massive bruise there."

Asked how she sustained the bruise, her professional partner Nikita Kuzmin interjected: "We get bruises all over the place because we're training so much. And sometimes we are doing tricks and deadlifts and things just happen."

Ellie Simmonds
Ellie Simmonds and Nikita Kuzmin on Strictly Come Dancing 2022. BBC

"Yeah, and a bit of me probably being a bit clumsy at times," Simmonds added. "But I think the body, and just the tiredness and the exhaustion... I've been giving everything to Strictly. I'm feeling muscles that I've never felt before."

Despite the docked point on Saturday, Ellie and Nikita still finished in a comfortable mid-table spot on the Strictly leaderboard, scoring 30 points for the second week in a row and coming in 6th place.

Additional reporting by Lauren Morris

Strictly Come Dancing airs on BBC One on Saturdays and Sundays. Visit our dedicated Entertainment hub for all the latest news, interviews and spoilers. If you’re looking for more to watch, check out our TV Guide.

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Authors

Patrick Cremona, RadioTimes.com's senior film writer looking at the camera and smiling
Patrick CremonaSenior Film Writer

Patrick Cremona is the Senior Film Writer at Radio Times, and looks after all the latest film releases both in cinemas and on streaming. He has been with the website since October 2019, and in that time has interviewed a host of big name stars and reviewed a diverse range of movies.

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