Strictly Come Dancing<\/a> has announced Gladiators<\/a> star and Olympic sprinter Harry Aikines-Aryeetey as the first celebrity contestant to join the 2025 series<\/a>.<\/p>\n Aikines-Aryeetey, known as Nitro to Gladiators fans, appeared on the BBC’s Newsround on Monday (11 August) to announce he will be joining the dancing show<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI’m so excited to be part of the Strictly family this series and I’m ready to give it all I’ve got,\u201d the 36-year-old said.<\/p>\n The athlete, a former Team GB sprinter who joined Gladiators in 2023, took part in last year’s Strictly Come Dancing Christmas Special alongside professional dancer Nancy Xu.<\/p>\n Aikines-Aryeetey said the Christmas Special \u201cwas so nice I just had to do it twice\u201d.<\/p>\n He has competed at two Olympic Games and is a three-time European champion and two-time Commonwealth champion. He also became the first athlete to win gold medals at both 100 and 200 metres at the World Youth Championships. He won the 2005 BBC Young Sports Personality of the Year, aged 17.<\/p>\n He follows in the footsteps of his Gladiators co-star Montell Douglas, who appeared on last year\u2019s 20th anniversary series of Strictly and was eliminated in week 10.<\/p>\n The next three celebrity contestants joining the new series of Strictly will be announced on The One Show on Monday evening.<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Harry Aikines-Aryeetey, best known as Nitro on \u2018Gladiators\u2019, will be joining \u2018Strictly\u2019 in 2025 (BBC)<\/p>\n The rumoured names for this year\u2019s series<\/a> include former GB athlete Mo Farah, Danny Dyer\u2019s daughter Dani, who won Love Island<\/a> in 2018, and Sort Your Life Out presenter Stacey Solomon.<\/p>\n Strictly has already revealed two new additions to the professional cast for 2025<\/a>. Alexis Warr, former winner of the US series So You Think You Can Dance in 2022, and Julian Caillon, a ballroom TV star from Australia, will both be arriving on the dancefloor this autumn.<\/p>\n They will be joining returning professionals Dianne Buswell<\/a> \u2013 who won the BBC dance competition with Chris McCausland in 2024 \u2013 alongside Nadiya Bychkova, Katya Jones, Neil Jones, Nikita Kuzmin, Gorka Marquez, Luba Mushtuk and Jowita Przystal.<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Harry Aikines-Aryeetey dancing with Nancy Xu on ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ Christmas Special 2024 (BBC)<\/p>\n Amy Dowden, who pulled out of last year\u2019s competition following a foot injury, will also return to the show. She will be joined by Carlos Gu, Kai Widdrington, Johannes Radebe, Alja\u017e \u0160korjane, Nancy Xu, Lauren Oakley, Michelle Tsiakkas, Vito Coppola and Karen Hauer.<\/p>\n It\u2019s been revealed that Marquez, one of Strictly\u2018s best-loved regular professionals, will not be partnered with a celebrity<\/a> in the 2025 series. He will be absent for up to four weeks of the BBC show\u2019s next run, as he is appearing as a judge on the Spanish version of the competition, Bailando Con Las Estrellas, in October.<\/p>\n All four judges \u2013 Craig Revel Horwood, Motsi Mabuse, Shirley Ballas and Anton Du Beke \u2013 will return.<\/p>\n Strictly Come Dancing airs on BBC One from September through to December.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":335756,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3940],"tags":[4080,77,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-335755","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115010238200632482","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/335756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Harry](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/p0lw8r5f.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Harry](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Screenshot-2025-08-11-at-09-58-27.png\")
<\/p>\n