Sam Thompson breaks his silence over ex Zara McDermott dating 1D star Louis Tomlinson

Sam Thompson has broken his silence about his ex dating star .

The former winner is set to in aid of UNICEF. And Sam - who yesterday launched a 260mile endurance challenge for the charity - told the how he’d heard that Louis was a “great bloke.”

He said: “I’ve never met Louis, but the moment I see him, I’ll be like, ‘mate, how amazing is this what we’re doing, and hopefully we can make as much money as possible’. And I imagine - from what I hear is a really lovely bloke - I imagine the reply will be exactly the same.”

Sam, who split from Zara four months ago and , added: “It’s a charity football game and everyone will have a smile on their face....everybody is doing it for a cause that is far beyond relationships and who’s hooking up with who and all that kind of stuff. brings everyone together.”

READ MORE:

It comes as Sam opened up about undertaking five back-to-back endurance days of running and cycling in less than two weeks. He is set to transport thefor UNICEF match ball from last year’s stadium - Stamford Bridge in London - 260 miles to the home of this year’s match at Old Trafford in Manchester.

It will see him take on five marathons and over 160 miles by bike. Speaking about how he was feeling, Sam said it has been giving him sleepless nights.

“I am so nervous…I’ve had nightmares about it,” he says. And he said even being out of his comfort zone in the jungle was nothing compared to this endeavour.

He said: “This is by far gonna be the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my entire life. The jungle was great. But I’ve never been a runner. Before I started training for this, I had never even run further, I think, it was 8K. And even then I remember getting back, my legs were dead and I was like, “oh, my God, this sucks. Why would anyone do this?”

“And then I stupidly watched the marathon this time around. Shouldn’t have done that because the amount of people who are literally on the floor. How is this even a thing? Like, Joel Dommet is a seasoned pro and he passed out.” Asked if he would rather do jungle trials instead, he says; “Oh, my God, the amount of camel’s penises I would eat, I can’t even tell you.”

Sam says juggling training with his TV work, podcast with and radio show with Bauer was proving hard going. “There’s so much going on. It is incredibly hard to go and train, I would have loved to have trained maybe a little bit more. But such is life, you know, and you can’t always just do it. So it’s gonna be one hell of a shock to me. It’s 260 miles, which is a lot,” he says.

He also spoken to . “Jamie and I are really great friends, he was like, ‘I can only just walk now…it’s going to be the hardest thing you’ve ever done,’” he says. “We’re not athletes. We’re your average Joe’s when it comes to physical activity, I think. And we are just two guys who’ve never run before.”

Donate to Sam’s Match Ball Mission for Soccer Aid for UNICEF now, by visiting This year, thanks to the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, every donation you make to Soccer Aid for UNICEF will be doubled – up to £5 million.