Hardy: 'Strictly standard is amazing'

Former Strictly Come Dancing winner Karen Hardy has claimed that the standard of dancing on this year's show is "fantastic".

The ex-World Masters Championships winner, who triumphed on the BBC One reality series with Mark Ramprakash in 2006, said that she was amazed by the opening week's performances.

"The standard is amazing for one simple reason, they all had to do two dances in the first show," she told It Takes Two. "I was expecting lots of mistakes in the choreography, but other than one or two mistakes, they all made it through two dances - fantastic!

"Because they had two dances in week one, the technique will not be that strong yet, so don’t penalise anyone - the choreography they did was fantastic."

Hardy also praised Joe Calzaghe and Kristina Rihanoff, who ended up at the bottom of the leaderboard, highlighting the Russian's "clever" choreography.

"They got slated, but Joe took the full weight of Kristina, while she ballet walked around and if they even got it slightly wrong, she would have fallen," she said. "Do not look at the technique that follows, but she was very clever with that piece of choreography. They need more of that while Joe settles."

Hardy, who has also danced with Bill Turnbull, Gary Rhodes and Brian Capron on the show, is not competing in this year's competition.