We hope you’ve enjoyed sharing the exhilarating 13-week 2022 Strictly journey here with us at strictlydb.com – for us, it’s been a brilliant starting series for our labour-of-love project and we look forward to many more to come, so a big thank you to all our users.

We couldn’t leave this Series without highlighting some of the most significant moments from last night’s fantastic Final – so here are 6 fabulous facts worthy of note.

1. Jowita First Debut Female Pro Champion

Jowita is the first female Pro to be crowned Champion on her debut series as a competitor (she joined in 2021 as one of the group dancers). This is an achievement that has already been accomplished by four male Pros: Brendan, Darren, Aljaž and Artem. This makes Jowita the fifth Pro in Strictly history to win the glitterball on her first attempt. In terms of overall wins, this is the twelfth time a female Pro/male celebrity pairing has won the competition in twenty series.

2. Fleur & Vito Make Strictly Samba History

Fleur was awarded the first 40 for a Samba by a female celebrity in the Final – this is only the third time a Samba has received top marks; Danny & Oti achieved a double 40 for their Samba back in Series 14 (2016), firstly in Week 10 and then again in the Final. Not only is it a notoriously tricky dance style to master, our research has shown it to be the dance with the highest number of eliminations on the show too making this achievement particularly impressive.

Although the Samba and Foxtrot have only produced 3 perfect routines each to date, there is one dance that has never received four tens and in our next fact we explain why.

3. Molly Joins the Rumba 39 Club

After receiving 39 points for their Rumba in last night’s Final, Molly & Carlos join the 7 other couples who have missed the perfect score for this dance by just 1 point. There are 10 Rumba routines in the 39 Club danced by 8 couples (as Rachel & Vincent and Kara & Artem both danced theirs twice and received an identical score).

Rumba is the only regular dance type that has never been awarded a top score on the show and we are very sorry to say that this is entirely down to Craig. On all ten occasions that 3 other judges have selected their ten paddle for a Rumba, Craig has awarded a 9. After an outstanding performance from Molly & Carlos last night, please please please can someone on the show find out what Craig needs to see from a Rumba in order to award one a 10. Here at strictlydb.com we’re completely baffled.

4. Couple’s Choice Preference Continues

3 Finalists performed their Couple’s Choice routine and each one received a perfect score; with the exception of Showdances, this is only the second time in Strictly history that 3 couples in the Final have performed the same dance type (although with Couple’s Choice the style obviously varies). The first time this happened was back in Series 6 (2008), where all 3 Finalists performed a Foxtrot (and 2 of these 3 routines received 40 points).

This year, it followed an unusual Semi-Final in which three couples performed a Paso Doble, a format reminiscent of early series where all couples would dance the same dance in Semi-Final week enabling direct comparisons across the same dance style.

Perhaps unsurprisingly due to the freedom it affords, a preference for Couple’s Choice as a Final dance looks likely to continue; since it was introduced as a dance type in Series 16 (2018), it has made an appearance in 4 out of 5 Finals.

5. Showdance Score Surprises

Hamza and Jowita’s surprising 34 is the lowest Showdance score to date awarded to a winning couple but only just. In Series 1 Natasha & Brendan won after scoring 35 for their Showdance and when Jay & Aliona became Series 13 Champions in 2015 their Showdance also scored 35. The lowest score for any Showdance is held by Series 1 Runners-up Christopher & Hannah who scored only 22 (which was 5 more points than they got for their Final Jive!).

The fact that no perfect scores were awarded to any Showdances this year, bucks the recent trend for this dance style to be awarded at least one perfect score in a Series Final. Before this year, in 9 of the last 10 series, one or more Showdances have been awarded top marks – the exception being Series 15 where Joe & Katya and Alexandra & Gorka scored 39 each for theirs.

6. Gutted for Gorka

This is the 3rd time Gorka has been a Runner-up in a Final and it’s doubtless disappointing for him, perhaps especially because the other Pro Finalists were all new to the competition here this year.

Persistence has paid off for some of the other male Pros though: Giovanni won Series 19 with Rose at his fourth attempt (and this after achieving 3 perfect scores in the 2018 Final with Faye). Kevin worked even harder to lift the glitterball, finally making it on this fifth attempt with Stacey also in 2018 (despite being the lowest scoring couple on the night). Even Pasha (who topped our leaderboard for highest scoring Male Pro) took 3 attempts until succeeding with Caroline in Series 12.

Strictly would certainly be a lot less special without Gorka so we’ve got all our fingers crossed that he too persists and returns next year to dance again.

Photo credit: BBC shareable YouTube cover image from: “Finalists Party 2022! ✨ BBC Strictly 2022“