As many sequins as possible and as revealing as you’re willing to go seems so often to be the dress code for ice skaters.

So it can’t have come as too much of a surprise to Russian skater Ekaterina Rubleva when she suffered a ‘wardrobe malfunction’.

It was during the middle of a routine, as the 23-year-old dancer was being twirled by her partner Ivan Shefer, that it occurred.

Going, going…: Ekaterina Rubleva’s dress slips down as Ivan Shefer raises her hand at the European Figure Skating Championships in Helsinki

Gone..: Rubleva and Shefer keep smiling and stick to the routine after the unchoreographed showing

With her hand raised above her head by his hand, the strain on the backless pink dress proved too much and out slipped her right breast.

Professionals to the core they continued with their dance at the European championships in Helsinki, Finland. The 5ft 3in dancer, who lives in Moscow, even managed to keep smiling throughout.

The extent to which it  helped, or impaired, their score with judges will never be known but with a score of 29.04 they skated away with a perfectly respectable 12th place.

The startling costumes used in ice skating were repeatedly milked for comic effect in the U.S. film Blades Of Glory which starred Will Ferrell and Jon Heder as rival skaters.

Red faced: The skater hid her face in embarrassment after the performance

Interest in ice skating has enjoyed something of a revival of late with ITV’s Dancing On Ice tapping into this.

Each week celebrities are taught how to dance on ice and then compete against each other.

None of them have so far succumbed to a ‘wardrobe malfunction’ but in the world of showbusiness the possibility of it arising is ever present.

When performing during the half-time show at the 2004 Super Bowl, Janet Jackson let slip her right breast while dancing with Justin Timberlake.

Although covered by a ‘nipple shield’ and lasting only nine sixteenths of a second, the incident caused a furore and was referred to by some as Nipplegate. Some commentators even questioned whether the incident indicated a declining morality in U.S. national culture.

And talk show host Judy Finnegan drew gasps from the crowd at the National TV Awards in 2000 when her ‘malfunction’ occured as she went on stage to pick up an honour.