Safety procedures on The Jump will be reviewed after three celebrities were forced to pull out from the show with injuries, Channel 4 confirmed.
Beth Tweddle, 30, remains in hospital following neck surgery which involved having a piece of bone taken from her hip after a fall on the slopes during rehearsals for the latest series of the winter sports show.
Beth Tweddle is recovering from surgery on her vertebrae (Channel 4)
Fellow Olympian Rebecca Adlington and Holby City actress Tina Hobley have also withdrawn because of injury, while athlete Linford Christie has been forced to take time out due to a hamstring injury but hopes to return to the show.
A Channel 4 spokeswoman said: “The Jump is now in its third series and since launch 46 celebrities have taken part successfully. Though it is a new course the events have been designed to be no more difficult than in previous years and all contributors have undertaken a rigorous training programme to prepare them for the show.
“All winter sports carry some element of risk but in light of the number of injuries this year, Channel 4 has asked the producers to review safety procedures again to further reduce the prospect of accident.”
Rebecca said the pain of her shoulder injury was worse than childbirth (Ian West/PA)
British former ski jumper Eddie 'The Eagle' Edwards defended the show’s producers and has said that celebrities should 'bear the brunt of the blame' for any injuries they suffer while taking part in The Jump.
The 52-year-old, who worked as an expert on the previous two series of the Channel 4 show, said the growing number of stars on the injury list was not 'solely' down to producers and suggested the contestants needed to practise more.
Eddie, who represented Britain at the 1988 Winter Olympics, said his 'thoughts' were with Beth, but he defended the programme’s makers against calls for it to be cancelled.
Eddie the Eagle said the fault did not lie “solely” with the show’s producers (Kerstin Joensson/AP)
He added 'time is tight' for contestants to get in the necessary practice, limited at times to a 'two-hour window', and some stars did not do enough.
Writing in the Daily Mail, he said: “Those competitors should be up and down the steps relentlessly – jump and go back, jump and go back. Instead too many will have a couple of goes before going off for a coffee and forgetting to return because they’re feeling tired.
“For that reason, I don’t think this spate of injuries is solely the fault of the producers.
“Many on social media are demanding the contest be cancelled, but I think the celebrities must bear the brunt of the blame. They signed up for this; they’re being paid for this. If they are hurting, it can often be self-inflicted.”
Tina Hobley dislocated her elbow and fractured her arm in two places (Channel 4)
Beth described the last 48 hours as 'very scary' after the operation which saw surgeons take a bone from her hip and use it along with pins to fuse together two fractured vertebrae in her neck.
Her exit follows that of Rebecca, 26, who withdrew on medical advice after a shoulder injury. She told host Davina McCall the fall was 'literally the worst thing that has ever happened to me, it was worse than childbirth'.
And Tina, 44, also quit after she dislocated her elbow and suffered two fractures to her arm.
