Strictly Come Dancing’s Gorka Marquez took to social media to share with fans the lavish birthday celebrations for contestant Angela Rippon as she turns 79 years old

As she waltzed her way along the dance floor a few weeks ago, you could be forgiven for thinking that Angela Rippon was still in her youth.

And although she remains in the running to win Strictly Come Dancing this year, the reality of her age was brought to light after Strictly pro Gorka Marquez posted a video on his social media to celebrate her 79th birthday. Angela’s high kick during one of her earlier performances left both viewers and the judging panel in awe, and on Loose Women earlier this week, lead judge Shirley Ballas claimed that she couldn’t even attempt the move.

Strictly’s Angela Rippon celebrated her 79th birthday ( 
Image:
gorka_marquez/Instagram)

Angela and her partner Kai ( 
Image:
BBC/Ray Burmiston)

In the video, Angela is seen being presented with what looked like a vanilla cake as the crowd in the marquee tent sang Happy Birthday. Angela turned 79 on Thursday this week and her Strictly pro dancer Kai Widdrington was one of the first to pay tribute to the legendary former newsreader.

Taking to social media he wrote: “Happy birthday to my wonderful dance partner in crime @theangelarippon you are one of the most amazing women I’ve ever had the pleasure to know and it’s my honour to get to dance with you every day.” And Tyler West also said: “Happy birthday ange!!!! @theangelarippon ” Nadiya Bychkova said: “Happy birthday @theangelarippon,” while Gorka Marquez replied: “HAPPY BIRTHDAY @theangelarippon ”

Another Strictly pro Dianne Buswell, who is partnered with Bobby Brazier said: “happy birthday.” Although Angela has made a good impression with her skills on the dancefloor, former Strictly pro Brendan Cole recently expressed his fears over her stamina in the competition.

Brendan said: “I think (Angela Rippon) can go all the way to the final but I don’t think she can go all the way and win it. The thing with Angela is, I think they were very clever – the music choice – ‘You make me feel so young’, (Kai Widdrington) looked really dapper. He looks after her, he’s a lovely boy. She knows how television works to say all the right things.”

He added: “She did a really nice Foxtrot, it was a pretty dance. She wasn’t hitting a particularly wonderful ballroom position but she’s 78 years old. What are we expecting? I think time will play against her in the show because it is very demanding and trying to make two numbers look good is very different to trying to make one number good. Half the time on a number can make a number go from being really nice, to really awful. I’ve no doubt that she’ll probably get to week eight or nine and that’d be great, but then once you step into two numbers, and you’ve got show dances and whatever, that becomes a tricky thing.”