As a bag was pulled from her head by Directing Staff (DS) member Mark 'Billy' Billingham, Welsh Taekwondo athlete Jade Jones OBE, 29, was told to "take that smirk off [her] face". And it was in that moment that this year's series of Channel 4's Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins kicked off with a bang.
Over the course of seven episodes, Jade (recruit number 10) and thirteen other celebrities are faced with the most brutal selection course that the series has ever offered, run by an elite team of ex-special forces operators from the UK and USA. Read here to see all of the celebrities who are taking part.
There will be no special treatment for the celebrities. Each recruit will be tested to their physical and psychological limits, as they confront surprising truths about themselves, to discover their true selves. Not everyone will have what it takes to make it to the end of this unique version of SAS selection in one of the harshest training environments on the planet.
The DS don’t care how famous the recruits are, how many social media followers they have or what they have done before this. As soon as they enter the selection process, their celebrity status and luxuries are stripped away.
The first episode of the new series, which aired on Sunday evening, opened with the celebrities taking on the 'Sugar Cookie' challenge. During which, all of them got into cold water and when they got out, had to roll in the sand until they were told to stop. This was all under the supervision of DS Remi Adeleke. Whilst watching the show, Jade posted a tweet saying: "Loved myself a sugar cookie. Still finding the sand!"
The celebrities were then taught to cope with chemical and biological warfare by being exposed to CS gas in the first task of the series. Elsewhere in the episode, as punishment for not topping up their water (a necessity for any soldier), Jade had to alternate carrying Love Island winner Amber Gill in laps, who clearly struggled with the challenge. The group then tried hand-to-hand combat.
On why she signed up to be a part of the series, Jade said: "I’d just lost my third Olympics going into it, so I wanted to figure myself out a little bit. Most people go on it to see for yourself if you’re a strong person. So I wanted to see how strong I was."
Despite enduring the most severe physical challenges. Jade said she was told to enjoy herself by former Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins star Jake Quickenden. "Like it is hard, but it's amazing," she said, "Yes, to be fair, he didn't really give me any advice. He just said that he loved it. So maybe that's what convinced me to go on it!"
Discussing her own history with physical training, Jade said: "I obviously trained for the Olympics, but then you have time off after. So I probably wasn’t in my fittest phase going into it. I was a bit nervous about that as well, because obviously after competitions you get a bit heavier and you get a bit out of shape, so I thought, 'Oh God, that's the only thing I had going for me', worried about my fitness but I still obviously went running on the beach and tried to do as much as I could."
Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins not only requires celebrities to be physically fit, but also mentally. Jade explained: "I always back myself, mentally. I’d say I’m tough. But then obviously losing in Tokyo gave me a bit of a knock and made me think, 'Oh God', because there was a mental problem with why I lost.
"That made me think, 'Oh God, have I lost it?' So going into it, I probably lost a bit of confidence in that side of things. That's one of the main things I wanted to figure out doing this show."
Summing up her experience as a whole, Jade said: "I think just a once in a lifetime experience. An amazing challenge, amazing test, and I got to learn a lot about myself. I loved every minute to be honest. I loved all the things that I did, I would've never done in my life or never trusted that I could do. So I just loved how it pushed me to do things I never thought I could do."
Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins continues next Sunday on Channel 4 at 9pm. For more showbiz and television stories, get our newsletter here.
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