Strictly favourites may have damaged their winning chances in most baffling way possible

Strictly favourites may have negatively impacted their contest… by doing well (Picture: BBC / PA)

Strictly Come Dancing favourites may have damaged their chances of winning the contest by doing really well.

Yes, you read that correctly. Scoring highly at this particular point in the contest can be detrimental to their overall standing.

There is an odd tradition that’s formed over the years of Strictly – the pairs who finish on top in Blackpool rarely go on to lift the Glitterball trophy.

Sarah Hadland and Tasha Ghouri topped the leaderboard in the most recent episodes with the almost perfect scores of 39, for their Couple’s Choice and Pasodoble routines.

Amongst those who’ve wowed at the famous Tower Ballroom but then been unable to convert to the ultimate win are Fleur East and Vito Coppola, Ashley Roberts and Pasha Kovalev, Alexandra Burke and Gorka Marquez, Danny Mac and Oti Mabuse, and Georgia May Foote and Giovanni Pernice.

The feature hasn’t always been an annual affair – there have been 12 Blackpool specials in total.

Oti and Danny couldn’t overcome the Blackpool ‘curse’ (Picture: BBC / Guy Levy)

They’ve excluded the element during Covid-19, and it also took a break between 2005 to 2008 due to logistical elements, while it was used as the filming location for the final in a handful of series.

Analysing the data tells us that there’s been three exceptions to the rule. Ellie Leach and Vito managed to do it after joining Layton Williams and Nikita Kuzmin at the top last year.

Sarah scored an almost perfect 39 (Picture: Guy Levy/BBC/PA Wire)

Kelvin Fletcher and Oti Mabuse who also shared the position with Karim Zeroual and Amy Dowden, famously won.

All the way back in the second series, Jill Halfpenny and Darren Bennett were able to do it too.

Sarah and Tasha, along with their partners Vito and Aljaž Škorjanec will be hoping to replicate the success of those Strictly marvels.

However, currently it looks like Chris McCausland and Dianne Buswell, who was third on Blackpool’s scoreboard, are heading for the 2024 champions title. He is standing at 1/5 to win, with Sarah, 53, at 9/2, and Tasha, 26, at 10/1.

Chris and Diane are favourites to win (Picture: Guy Levy/BBC/PA Wire)

While Tasha may not take the ultimate prize if Chris, 47, does manage to secure it (and help the women in the jungle), she is still going into the Strictly history books after many incredible routines.

Rarely putting a foot wrong means that Tasha and Aljaž now have a different title, which they were only made aware of after a social media post grabbed their attention.

‘Someone said that we are the highest scoring couple in twenty seasons after nine weeks,’ Aljaž, 34, said on This Morning before Cat Deeley confirmed it was true. All those 9s and 10s have added up!

Tasha is making Strictly history (Picture: Guy Levy/BBC/PA Wire)

‘It is correct. Thank you very much!’ responded an excited Aljaž. He then praised Tasha for throwing herself into the competition.

‘How she can learn to the standard we’re doing every week is unbelievable. I’ve never seen anything like it,’ he summarised.

Sarah’s future could also be cut short after she was handed a ‘major blow.’

Strictly Come Dancing continues on Saturday at 7.05pm on BBC One and iPlayer.

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