I’ve taken on the new Gladiators games – just lifting the battle sticks wiped me out – it’s SAVAGE, says Sun TV Expert

I’VE long harboured the notion I’d be excellent on Gladiators. The Travelator? Easy. Run The Gauntlet? Doddle.

But those dreams, which began as a child watching Nineties’ icons like Jet and Wolf, proved to be far, far out of reach for this ageing 38-year-old.

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Who’d have thought it? It turns out those games are all absolutely savage!

Even lifting the iconic pugil sticks - “the ear buds” as my sister and I used to call them - was a trial.

The fact I then had to brace one at shoulder height and somehow use my weight to swing it against a competitor was unfathomable.

I don’t know whether my face was left red from exertion or shame as I pathetically railed against tiny but mighty Emily Steel - aka Dynamite.

The youngest of the new Gladiators at 20, Emily admits she’s too young to remember the show the first time round.

Even though the version of Duel we play is far less taxing than the real one, which is performed atop two plinths as a Gladiator tries to send a contender tumbling, my jabs are more thumb war than fist fight.

I flailed around trying to control the hefty bar, willing the 90 seconds of game time to be over. 

I fared no better in the main arena where I tried my hand at Powerball.

Fans of the original may remember the game where two contenders have to score goals into a series of wobbly egg cups, scattered across the glossy floor.

The catch being that, of course, there is a troop of Gladiators in the way.

Sheffield Arena has been taken over by the show and it’s reassuring that so much of the space looks and feels like the show we know and love. 

Strategising as I took to the floor I decided to lean on my real strength and try to distract the goddesses guarding the pods with inane chatter. 

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But my performance here was even more woeful than with the pugil sticks and I managed to bank just one ball in the sixty seconds’ game time.

It’s hard to hold a grudge against the Gladiators, though, when they’re such incredible specimens of human kind. 

This lot appears to have been built in the lab.

As well as humour and wit of their own, there isn’t a hair out of place, a shadow of stubble and each muscle is crafted to exacting perfection. 

Costume teams and make-up artists waiting on hand to help me into my knee and elbow pads tell me the troops don’t even take much sprucing - they’re just built that way.

Which is where I’m clearly going wrong. 

Gladiators, ready! Contenders… good luck, you'll need it!