Dancing On Ice: Lucrezia Millarini aiming to skate away with the prize

Long before a single celebrity steps foot on the famous Dancing On Ice rink there are weeks and months of training to perfect every twist, turn and headbanger.

Joining this year's lineup is ITV News presenter Lucrezia Millarini. Until now she'd only dabbled in skating. But after a few bumps and bruises on the ice and some expert guidance from her skating partner Brendyn Hatfield she's got her sight set on skating away with the top prize.

We caught up Lucrezia and Brendyn during training at Queensway in west London.

LU: A lot of people ask me could I skate already? The answer is no, not really. Apart from going to occasional Christmas when all the rinks open up around London. So this has been lots to take in over the last couple of months - a lot to learn! It hasn't been easy. It's been fun, but it's been hard as well.

LU:I think the most difficult part of training is just being able to trust myself, trust the fact that I'm not going to fall over every second. Trust my body. I do workout I'm quite fit but this is a whole new ball game. You get good days and you get really bad days it's not an easy thing to learn.

LU: I've had a few bumps, had a few bruises, had some injured ribs recently so things like getting injured are quite hard because you have to get on with work, get back on the rink, you have to train. I have to get on with the day job as well I can't stop doing that!

BRENDYN:It's my first time on Dancing On Ice and for my first season Lucrezia is by far the best celebrity partner I've ever had.

LU: We're doing some pretty cool stuff, I would say some quite high risk moves.

BRENDYN: Very advanced tricks.

LU:He's been pushing me out of my comfort zone but I trust him. And so far he hasn't dropped me! I'm feeling pumped, let's do this now! I've been trying to not give too much away about the routine involved, what the song is or anything like that - but I'm excited to reveal all on January 5th 2020.

The new series of Dancing On Ice returns to ITV on January 5th 2020.