Strictly Come Dancing 2017 ‘fix’ over claims Aston Merrygold ‘is being marked down’

Strictly Come Dancing 2017 is facing fix claims over the suggestion that Aston Merrygold is being marked down by the judges.

The favourite to win scored 31 and 32 points respectively for his first two routines, not quite enough to top the leaderboard last weekend which was led by Debbie McGee.

However former Strictly pro James Jordan reckon that the judges “twist” scores to stop frontrunners getting too far ahead.

“Aston’s dance was full of brilliant lifts and tricks,” said James. “But the judges twist scores. Someone does an amazing performance and they don’t want them to run away with it.

Speaking to The Sun newspaper, James accused: “They did it with Danny Mac last year. I get irate about it.”

And he claimed: “It’s meant to be about teaching someone who’s not danced before. You won’t see a Darren Gough or Mark Ramprakash win again.”

Aston previously hit back at his critics after being branded a ‘professional dancer’ by some.

Chatting to Zoe Ball on BBC Two spin-off show It Takes Two with pro partner Janette Manrara, Aston had his say.

“Of course I’ve had dance experience, I was in a boy band and used to throw a few tricks around and backflips,” said Aston, who was also a judge on Sky1 show Got To Dance.

He went on: “But I’ve never had training or college training or been to a dance class.

“It’s very different and Janette puts up with a lot. I’m slowly getting there, just trying to shift the bad habits.”

Aston finished second in the overall leaderboard after the first two dances, just ahead of former X Factor rival Alexandra Burke.

But Alex, who beat Aston’s boy band JLS to win The X Factor in 2008, scored the highest marks of the series so far with 36 points for her Paso Doble.

Strictly Come Dancing returns this evening with the scores reset to 0 for the third round of live performances.

It’ll be a movie themed lived show, starting at 6:35PM on BBC One.