The cast for Season 26 of "Dancing with the Stars" was announced on "Good Morning America" on Friday, April 13. The upcoming season will premiere on Monday, April 30 with only four weeks of airtime because of "American Idol" that is taking up some of the dance competition show's usual 11 weeks of being on ABC. The program will be fast paced with double eliminations each week.
Other than having a much shorter season, "Dancing With The Stars" has a cast of all athletes from various sports including figure skating, baseball, softball, football, men and women's basketball, snowboarding and luging. Several of the contestants are participants from last Winter Olympics.
Reactions to the cast
Most of the athletes are unknown to the public. However, Tonya Harding who is paired with newly married Sasha Farber is getting a lot of publicity not because of her dance skills but because of the figure skater's connection to the scandal with fellow figure skater Nancy Kerrigan. Harding ex-husband and bodyguard were involved in hitting figure Kerrigan in the knee during the 1994 Winter Olympic Games in Lillehammer, Norway.
Kerrigan appeared during Season 24 of "Dancing with the Stars." She and pro dancer Artem Chigvintsev were eliminated during the sixth week of competition.
Other than Harding being talked about, loyal fans of the show can't understand how it will work out with 7'2" Kareem Abdul-Jabbar dancing with 5'6'' partner Lindsay Arnold. The public might be surprised by the performance of the NBA legend who will turn 71 on April 16 and the 24-year-old winner of last season who was paired with Jordan Fisher.
This will be Lindsay's 11th season as a professional dancer on the show. She says she is up for the challenge to dance with Kareem, whose real name is Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr.
This is not the first time a tall person has been paired with a shorter person.
In Season 23, Sasha Farber who stands at 5'7'' was paired with "Little Women: LA" star Terra Jolé who is 4'2" tall. They made it to the 10th week before being eliminated.
Other cast members
Other than Harding and Farber and Abdul-Jabbar and Arnold, the other cast members and their partners include Adam Rippon with Jenna Johnson, Arike Ogunbowale with Gleb Savchenko, Jennie Finch Daigle with Keo Motsepe, Josh Norman with Sharna Burgess, Mirai Nagasu with Alan Bersten, Chris Mazdzer with Witney Carson, Jamie Anderson with Artem Chigvintsev, and Johnny Damon with Emma Slater who married professional dancer Farber last month.
The upcoming season will indeed be different, but longtime hosts Tom Bergeron and Erin Andrews will return as well as all three judges. Head judge Len Goodman, Carrie Ann Inaba, and Bruno Tonioli will be back to judge the athletes.