Athletes are invited to “sparkle up their uniforms and lace up their dancing shoes” for Season 26.
The wait is (almost) over, after ABC announced its official roster for its all-athletes edition of Dancing With the Stars on Good Morning America Friday.
Season 26 will see 10 athletes participate in the four-week live event. This is shorter than the competition’s normal 10-to-11-week stint. The change could likely be attributed to the network’s American Idol reboot, Entertainment Weekly reported.
The selected athletes may have a shorter time to compete for the top prize, but ABC welcomed them to “sparkle up their uniforms and lace up their dancing shoes as they ready themselves for their first dance on the ballroom floor,” in a press release issued to Newsweek .
Season 26’s lineup includes some of the best. To make this athletes edition extra special, the show invited three Olympic figure skaters, a former Los Angeles Lakers and a gold-medal-winning Olympic snowboarder, among others.
Olympic figure skaters Adam Rippon and Tonya Harding are confirmed to compete in Season 26. Both had long been rumored to be featured in the show’s all-athletes edition.
Deena Katz, the show’s casting director and co-executive producer, said she watched every sport shown in the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games to round out this season’s cast of athletes.
“You want, as a fan, to be excited to watch because whoever the ice skater, snowboarder, whatever it is that stole your heart, and that you love or that talked or everyone’s talking about, you want to see them on the show,” Katz told WXIA-TV, Atlanta’s NBC-affiliated station in February. “So I really try to watch as a fan and change my cast as I see how they’re doing.”
See all of the best photos of the week in these slideshows
This isn’t the first time Dancing With the Stars has cast athletes. Emmitt Smith, Kristi Yamaguchi, Apolo Ohno, Meryl Davis and Shawn Johnson are among a growing list of athletes who have competed in the series (and won their respective seasons, too).
Dancing With the Stars: Athletes is scheduled to kick off April 30 at 8 p.m. on ABC. Here’s a full roster of the casted athletes with their professional dance partner:
Olympic figure skater Adam Rippon was cast in Season 26 of “Dancing With the Stars.” Here, Rippon attends the 29th Annual GLAAD Media Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills on April 12. Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images
