The Day I Swapped Katarina Witt for a Camel

The news that the former East German ice skating star Katarina Witt will become a Dancing On Ice judge on ITV reminded me of a bizarre couple of days spent in Munich many moons ago when I went to interview the 1984 and 1988 ladies singles Winter Olympic gold medallist.

Witt, now aged 46, was regarded as one of the sexiest sportswomen on the planet - and she knew it. The four time world champion and six time European champion was the biggest flirt I had ever come across in all my times interviewing sportswomen over the years, not only with me, but with my photographer, the hotel manager, the other skaters, in fact just about everyone and just about everyone was eating out of the palm of her hand.

That night she was appearing in a Holiday on Ice spectacular in the Bavarian capital and suggested, for photographic purposes, that in the scene where the animals escaped from the zoo she, dressed as a lioness, would run out into the audience and sit on my knee. Who was I to argue with that proposition?

When the moment came, however, and the animals fled into the audience, Witt disappeared out of the auditorium and a camel with two blokes inside the costume jumped on me instead. Oh how Katarina laughed afterwards when we met at the after show party! Meanwhile the photographer has never let me forget the moment when I was out-witted, if you excuse the pun, by the lovely Katarina!