Dancing with the Stars has crowned Nyle DiMarco its Season 22 champion, making him the first deaf contestant to ever win the dancing competition.

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Nyle, who is also the reigning winner of America's Next Top Model, and his professional partner Peta Murgatroyd were declared Dancing with the Stars' ballroom champions during Tuesday night's live two-hour finale broadcast on ABC.

"This is such an amazing feeling. This whole thing has been so incredible because of this man! I owe everything to him. He is just incredible," Peta said in tears following the victory announcement on behalf of her partner, who was also crying.

Nyle and Peta hugged each other and were hoisted up onto their fellow castmates' shoulders. The ecstatic pair celebrated onstage as Nyle's family cheered in the audience and chaos ensued around them.

Nyle and Peta were revealed to be Dancing with the Stars winners based on the combination of judges' scores and home viewer votes they had received over the last two weeks of competition, including this week's three rounds of dances.

Peta won Dancing with the Stars once before in Season 14 with Donald Driver. She had to take last season off due to an ankle injury and only landed in tenth place during Season 20 with Michael Sam.

UFC fighter Paige VanZant and partner Mark Ballas finished the competition in second place. Mark won the ABC reality dancing competition twice, but his best run as of recently was Season 19 when he finished in second place with Sadie Robertson.

"It's been amazing. I'm just so thankful that I got to have this opportunity. I'm going to remember it forever," Paige said after learning the results.

Good Morning America meteorologist Ginger Zee and partner Val Chmerkovskiy claimed third place. Val won Season 20 with Rumer Willis but only finished in fifth place last season with Tamar Braxton.

"I am so proud and I'm so grateful for Val and I'm so grateful for just the opportunity to be here. I feel like I'm a science nerd; I'm a girl who loves storms. And what I hope someone can take away from this is that you can be more than one thing. You can be a meteorologist who can dance! And thank you for turning me into that [Val], and thank you all so much for having me," Ginger said.

"She's an ordinary girl doing extraordinary things," Val gushed of the new mom. "It's a pleasure to work with somebody with that type of work ethic, that type of humility and gratitude in everything she does."

Paige and Mark topped the combined two-night judges' leaderboard in first place this week after they received a total score of 89 out of 90 possible points for their three routines from Dancing with the Stars judges Carrie Ann Inaba, Len Goodman and Bruno Tonioli. Nyle and Peta finished in second place with 87 total points, while Ginger and Val took third on the combined leaderboard with 85 total points.

Tuesday night's finale featured the Top 3 couples each performing one last quickly-rehearsed "24-hour Fusion Dance," which combined two different styles of ballroom dance into one complicated routine. The challenge completed each couple's scores from the judges for the finals.

Nyle and Peta took the stage with a cha cha and tango routine that received a perfect score of 30 points from the judges.

Nyle's overall performance throughout the season touched the judges so much that they were all in tears. Carrie Ann even thanked Nyle for showing the world his heart in sign language, which made the model sob with joy. Nyle was the second deaf contestant to ever compete on Dancing with the Stars, following in the footsteps of Marlee Matlin.

Paige and Mark also earned 30 points for their jive-salsa fusion. Ginger and Val performed an Argentine tango and foxtrot fusion which added 27 points to their total.

During Monday night's broadcast, the Top 3 finalists and their respective partners danced in two rounds of competition -- a "Redemption Routine," which is an improved encore performance of a previously-performed dance on the show, and the fan-favorite "Freestyle," which is a supersized routine with no rules or expectations.

For a more detailed description of each couple's scores and routines from Monday night's performance show, click here.



About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski

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