Copyright manchestereveningnews
Harry Aikines-Aryeetey's daughter is "bored" by some of his Strictly Come Dancing routines, as he also opened up about his wife's support. The former Olympic athlete is competing in the BBC One dance contest alongside the show's longest-serving professional, Karen Hauer. Despite landing bottom of the leaderboard with their latest performance, an American smooth to Mystical Magical by Benson Boone, during the show's Halloween special, the pair are back in training having safely made it through to week seven of the competition. But despite the judges giving him feedback each week, its actually his daughter, Aubree-Isla, five, who dishes brutal opinions for her 37-year-old dad, making her his biggest critic. Harry told the new issue of Closer magazine: "It's my daughter that critiques me! She's like, 'No, you don't do it like that, Daddy, we don't do that move, we do this.' "I showed her a video of [Karen Hauer and I] dancing yesterday. She watched it for 10 seconds and said, 'Boring.' She just wants me to do K-pop!" Meanwhile, his wife Lauren is the Gladiators star's biggest cheerleader. Harry - also known as Nitro - said: "[Lauren's] in awe of the majority of things I do. "My journey as an athlete and person has been interesting. From track to Gladiators to this, even MasterChef, so many things I've been able to apply myself to. "For her, my dancing is good, but she's not surprised because she thinks I can do anything." Meanwhile, Karen, 43, says dancing with Harry is like "driving a Maserati sports car" because she has to keep him "finely tuned" to zoom into the BBC Latin and Ballroom dance competition's final on December 20. She said: "I always say dancing with Harry is like I'm driving a Maserati sports car. I have to slightly tap the gas, then slightly tap the brake so it rides just perfectly. "He's a race car that's fine-tuned, and I have to keep tuning it perfectly so it drives perfectly." Karen - who joined Strictly in 2012 - feeds him the choreography and information like an "IV drip". And she is blown away by how much of the knowledge he retains in his sticky brain. Karen said: "The way we feed the choreography and information is like a drip feed. He should have a little drip into him, and I feed him information, like an IV drip. It's incredible how quickly he picks things up and how much detail I go into. I don't think he knows how difficult it is." The former Commonwealth sprinter hails his dance partner as the perfect teacher. Harry said: "I've been trained by a lot of coaches. I need feedback. I just need to be told what to do. Truth be told, that's why my wife loves me, because she tells me what to do, and I do it! "That's pretty much what I do with Karen - she's really good at reading people. Within the first week, she was able to get a gist of ... if I had a bit of a brain malfunction or my eye twitched, she was like, 'OK, we're going to go over this bit because I can see you're not ...' "It's like my head is nodding, but my eyes are telling her I don't understand."
