2015 GrandSlam Shanghai

The Finals in Shanghai brought the GrandSlam Series 2015 to an end. The dancers will soon enjoy their well deserved Christmas and New Year holidays. In January and February a new season begins with national competitions and championships held in many countries.

The first major international competition will be the Finnish Open DanceSport Championships (Finland Open) in Helsinki. It will launch the GrandSlam Series 2016.

The Finland Open is again held at the Exhibition Centre of Helsinki, a fabulous venue that is directly connected to the Holiday Inn hotel. In addition to the WDSF GrandSlam, other Open competitions will be held for every age group: Senior 1, 2, 3 and 4 Open, Rising Stars, Youth Open, Junior 2 and 1 Open, Juvenile 2and 1 Open competitions. There will even be PD Opens!

For more information about the Finland Open visit official site www.finlandopen.fi

All the clips of individual couples that our videographer Ferran Castanyer recorded during the first round of the Latin and the Standard GrandSlam Finals - 15 each - have been added to the gallery above. The latest pictures that were shot by the Chinese DanceSport Federation photographer Yi were also uploaded.

That should give you a good first look at two exceptional competitions that brought the GrandSlam Series 2015 to a conclusion. The two video-on-demand programmes - featuring semi-final and final in full length plus interviews, backstage pieces, etc. - will get released prior to Christmas. They will give you the full picture!

Pre-order the Standard programme (US$ 3.75 for a 90-day streaming period) right here!
Preo-order the Latin programme (US$ 3.75 for a 90-day streaming period) right here!

In just about any sport it seems to hold true that when opponents who are on top of their game face off against each other, it is above all the sport that wins. What the six couples dancing the last round of today's GrandSlam Standard Final put onto the floor in Shanghai was nothing short of amazing.

In the end, Dmitry Zharkov and Olga Kulikova had again the upper hand in this couple-against-couple "combat" against Simone Segatori - Annette Sudol, GER, that was fought at much closer range than the one in Vilnius, LTU, only eight days ago.

You got to watch a live stream of yesterday's World Formation Latin semi-final and final. But our colleagues Helmut Roland and Martin Branc also recorded most of what went on in the arena. Here is the first video: the Duet Perm, RUS, formation performing its routine in the final. More will get added eventually, but unfortunately our bandwidth here in Shanghai - from where we upload - is precarious.

The first round of the 2015 GrandSlam Standard Final produced three couples whose dancing here in Shanghai is already over. Thwo of them travelled quite a distance to perform Waltz, Tango, Viennese, Slow Fox and Qucikstep just once. But let's not forget, they had already made most of their way when they boarded their flights to get here. By claiming their rightful place among the 12 top couples in the world through four excellent results in the 2015 GrandSlam Series!

By the way, the LIVE RESULTS seem to work today: to find out who placed 11th, 12th and 13th in the Final, click here!

Have a look at how the GrandSlam Final Standard played out last year here in Shanghai. All the protagonists appearing in this short promotional reel will return to the floor of the Luwan stadium shortly.

We will try to provide you with a front row seat to all the action this year as well. It might not be in our usual "nearly real-time" mode, because access to the internet from the venue has not improved sinced 2014, but you should get to see the first videos here and on YouTube in the course of this Sunday.

From here the focus will be on Standard. In just over two hours 12 couples will dance in the 2015 GrandSlam Standard Final at the Luwan Stadium in Shanghai. Below is how we see the  situation on the Vimeo on Demand page pitching the 90-minute programme of the semi-final and final.

A hierarchy seemed firmly established when it comes to the standings that were produced by the major Standard competitions held throughout the year - at least until very recently! Simone Segatori and Annette Sudol, GER, were the dominators from the first leg of the GrandSlam Series in Helsinki, FIN, on to the European in Aarhus, DEN, and on to the biggest of them all, the GrandSlam Stuttgart in August.

Dmitry Zharkov and Olga Kulikova, RUS, seemed destined to be the perpetual runners-up, claiming their second places with varying margins of points that separated them from the winners. Evaldas Sodeika and Ieva Zukauskaite, LTU, were cast as the second runners-up - except in the GrandSlam Wuhan, where they fell back a few places.

This could have continued forever, but then - suddenly - the powers shifted and the customary order was reversed. In the 2015 World Standard in Vilnius, LTU, the Russians staged the ultimate upset by winning all five dances and the title over the Germans. And that with a difference of nearly seven points - a landslide! Even the Lithuanians managed to place ahead of Segatori - Sudol in the Quickstep of the final.

Exactly eight days later the same three couples face off again to contest the last title of the year. Together with ten other top-ranked couples they have been invited to Shanghai, CHN, and the GrandSlam Finals.

Pre-order the programme (US$ 3.75 for 90-day streaming period) right here!

Remember, videos of 15 dances recorded during the preliminary round will be available for free right here and on our YouTube channel DanceSport Total.

The home team didn't win - for once. As Heidi Goetz puts it, the fight for fourth place between the home team HSV Zwölfaxing, AUT, the club that organised this World Championship, and FG TSZ Aachen/TD TSC Düsseldorf RW, GER, the formation with the longest name, was extremely tight, with the Germans being luckier in the end.

As to the medal places, the two Russian formations Vera Tyumen and Duet Perm showed great choerographies packed with surprising effects, but they both failed to bring the characteristics of the Latin American dances fully across in their routines. GGC Bremen, the defending champions, improved from one round to the next and won convincingly and deservingly.

The public's favourites were the eight couples of Duet Perm. They were given the only standing ovation of the evening.