Australian wildlife warrior Robert Irwin has triumphed in a nail-biting finale to win US TV’s Dancing with the Stars.

Irwin and his dance partner Witney Carson won the coveted Mirrorball Trophy in a three-hour finale watched by an estimated six million Americans on Tuesday night (local time).

Both teared up as they accepted the trophy, before 21-year-old Irwin – son of the late Crocodile Hunter Steve – made a short victory speech.

“My sister said it best, thank you for changing my life,” he said.

Irwin’s sister Bindi, then just 17, also won the show 10 years ago.

But Robert saved his tears for his late father, saying he’d just wanted to make him proud.

“I wish he could see it, I really wish he could be here,” he said.

Irwin and Carson narrowly won Tuesday’s final from runner-ups Alix Earle and Val Chmerkovskiy. Both couples individually got the most votes of any competitors in the 34-year-old show’s history.

For their last dances of the competition, Irwin and Carson had performed a quickstep to Are You Gonna Be My Girl by Jet, a freestyle dance to Black & Gold by Sam Sparro and The Nights by Avicii. Their last dance was a cha cha to Cake by the Ocean.

Ahead of the finale, Irwin – who had no dance experience going into the show – revealed he’d injured his ribs in training.

“I’ve been dealing with rib pain because the intercostal muscles of the ribs are under a lot of tension,” he said, saying the quickstep required a lot of control of that part of his body.

“It’s been getting worse progressively.”

“We’re kind of falling apart right now,” Carson said in a TikTok video on Monday, admitting the pair had had to change their routine to accommodate the injury.

“Robert’s ribs have been killing him.”

They wowed the judges nonetheless. One judge Derek Hough – who chose the dance for Irwin and Carson – called him the “quickstep king”.

“It was crisp and clean,” he said.

“The frame was strong. Your movement across that floor was fantastic.”