Newfoundlander Cassidy Little wins British TV dance competition, The People's Strictly
A Newfoundlander was named the big winner of The People's Strictly, a British TV dance competition.
Cassidy Little, 33, and his professional dance partner Natalie Lowe learned of their victory on a live results show that aired on BBC on Friday.
Little used to dance in St. John's with instructor Judy Knee, but he pushed that pastime to the side when he joined the Royal Marines.
Little lost his right leg, below the knee, during a tour in Afghanistan in 2011.
"My first words when I got blown up were: 'There goes my tap dancing days.' Because I made the assumption that I was never going to dance again," he told Weekend Arts Magazine host Angela Antle.
"The reality is that I was wrong."
"My first thought was that maybe Natalie would look at me and say, 'Oh great, I got the one-legged guy,'" he said.
"I didn't want to let her down. And in that, by not letting her down, I wouldn't let the whole Marines down, I wouldn't let my family down, I wouldn't let my wife down ... I wouldn't let myself down. So I just chopped it all the way down to that. I don't want to let my dance partner down. And that's been my motivation for the past six weeks."
Strictly Come Dancing is similar to Dancing With the Stars — but for this season, the show featured six members of the public, described as real-life heroes, instead of celebrities, and called it The People's Strictly.
Viewers voted for the winner, and for each vote, one British pound was donated to UK charities.
Watch Little's performance, and the winning announcement, in the video player above.