The 2009 champion will head the celebrity line-up for Torvill & Dean's Dancing on Ice: The Bolero 25th Anniversary Tour, along with Kyran Bracken, Todd Carty, Chris Fountain, Melinda Messenger, Roxanne Pallett, Zoe Salmon, Suzanne Shaw and Jessica Taylor.

The 20-year-old former X Factor finalist had established himself as favourite over the 10 weeks of the competition despite having no real experience of ice dancing.

"I'd only ever skated two or three times for a laugh so it was scary for me at first just to get on the ice," he revealed. "But after a bit I got more confident. It was a case of practice makes perfect and I got better.

"It's such a great opportunity you don't want to put a foot wrong.

"It's one thing doing it in practice but when you come out on Sunday it's such an abnormal situation in front of everyone and you've got to skate and you've got to lift someone."

With his Bulgarian partner, Maria Filippov he received perfect scores of 30 in his two rated dances in the final.

Judge Robin Cousins said the singer's dance to Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now was "breathtaking," adding: "You capture the love story. It blows me away."

The win will inevitably raise the profile of the young singer from Liverpool who came to prominence when he came second in the X Factor final to Leona Lewis.

Speaking on his mobile from the back of a limo ferrying him between media interviews on Tuesday, he said: "It's fantastic for your career but at the end of the day it was more about having the chance to get up close to Christopher and Jayne. So I said yes I want to do it just because of the pleasure of doing it."

Taking part is one thing but it takes more to actually win.

"I am a competitive person, more than most and I push myself to the limits," he admits, "but I think it was as much about responding to Christopher's enthusiasm."

Now he prepares for the new challenge of performing live. But he won't be slowing down. After the five-week tour he will return to West End musical Grease to play T-Bird Doody.

"I know it makes me sound a bit of a workaholic but Grease has been a dream of mine since I was a little boy," he says.

There are performances of Dancing on Ice at Sheffield Arena from Thursday to Sunday.

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