Category: WDSF World Championships

The new sections “Freestyle Standard” and “Freestyle Latin” were started last year. For this year`s competition fourteen couples had registered. Following the rules a minimum of three out of the five standard dances have to be shown during 75 % of the time, which is between 3:30 and 4:00 minutes. Elements of the other dances may be included up to 25 % time of the show.

Titel holder Simone Segatori – Annette Sudol from Germany had come again to Beijing to stick up for the title of World Champion Freestyle Standard for a second time. And they succeeded to win again in a superior manner. Congratulations to Simone & Annette.

Beijing International DanceSport Open set the stage this year for WDSF World Championship Youth Latin on September 22nd at Ditan Gymnasium. 66 couples from 37 countries competed for the title. We saw excellent latin dancing from the young couples.

Paul Adrian Moldovan – Christina Tatar from Romania win the title with 7 points (3,1,1,1,1) ahead of Artem Efanin – Anastasia Kornilova from Russia, who were set on 2nd place with 10 points (1,2,2,3,2).

We saw the world premiere of a new category in WDSF competitions: the project is called U21. WDSF initiated a new category between youth and adult: “Under 21”. In Aarhus on February 22nd 2012, the premiere of this project started: 91 couples, most of them coming from Europe, but also from North America and Asia, joined the first open World Championship Unter 21 Latin.

The audience saw excellent performance in all latin dances. We can resume, the next generation of latin dancers is becoming mature and is well prepared for the adult category.

6th Dance Olympiad World Dance Sport – Cambrils 2012 – set the stage for this years open WDSF World Championship Senior II Standard. 156 couples from all over the world started for the championship in Spain on April 7th 2012.

The championship started at 10.00 a.m. and it took the whole day to find the finalists. At 8.30 p.m. seven couples were nominated for the final rounds.

Heinz-Josef Beckers / Aurelia Bickers from Germany won all dances and the World Championship Senior II Standard with a total of 5 points.

12 th Antwerp Stars Cup from 3rd – 5th February 2012 set the stage for the WDSF World Championship Senior I Standard on 5th February. Organizer and master of ceremony Hubert de Maesschalck from Stars DanceSportClub was happy to salute couples, adjudicators and guests with finest weather and degrees around -20 ° C (- 4°  F) and a wonderful white layer of snow. Certainly, there were some problems to get to the Sporthal Extra Time in time on Friday evening, because there was nearly no more traffic running at the airports, train stations and on the streets.

The WDSF World Formation Championships Standard create their own rules. Last five years the winner of the World Formation Championship Standard was host of the event. In 2006 Vera Tyumen from Russia won in Moscow. In 2007 1.TC Ludwigsburg from Germany won in Stuttgart. In 2008 the DSC CoDreanca Team from Moldova won in Chisinau. The winner of the 2009 competition was 1. TC Ludwigsburg again. The event took place in Ludwigsburg. In 2010 the formation teams competed in Elblag/Poland. The lucky winner was ST Lotos Jantar Elblag.

“The World Ten Dance Championship is the most difficult event for our athletes”. With these words WDSF President Carlos Freitag opened the championship on November 12^th this year in Shanghai. 34 couples had come to compete for the title.

Last year in Vienna, Bjørn Bitsch & Ashli Williams from Denmark could win the title ahead of Timur Imametdinov & Ekaterina Nikolaeva from Russia. At the European Championship Ten Dance in Moscow in April we had experienced a rum start. Timur and Ekaterina were lucky to turn the situation. They won the European Championship Ten Dance ahead of Bjørn and Ashli. Is it time for a revenge now, I asked the couple during an interview in Moscow two weeks before the championship?

It happened around 11 p. m. at International Expo & Conventional Center “Crocus-Expo” in Moscow on November 29th: the finals rounds of the World Championship Standard 2011 were completed. The finalists had come back to the floor waiting for the results. The speaker called on the couples who had won 6th place, … 5th place … 4th place … 3rd place … Same procedure (ranking) as last year in Wetzlar. Then he called on the couple with the number 27 for 2nd place!