World Champions Back on the Island! 24/05/2011

Crystal Palace Cup 2011, a well-known and prestigious event in the dancing world, was held again after a cancellation in 2010, at the London Park Plaza Riverbank Hotel, featuring IDSF International Open Standard and Latin, IDSF Senor I, IDSF Under 21 and IDSF PD Standard events.

Congratulations to the organisers Olga Komarova and Nick Kremichenski for their excellent work and their persistence to bring back IDSF DanceSport Competitions to England. Despite all the stress, notwithstanding all the phone calls and letters mentioning consequences to follow, they believed in what they were doing.  Most of us know about the pressure from some British trainers addressing the couples to boycott this event.

Olga and Nick promoted their event well, and what a success for the 10^th Anniversary of the Crystal Palace Cup! Couples from 28 Nations took part in this competition.

The reigning World Champions Benedetto Ferruggia and Claudia Koehler (GER) enjoyed extremely warm reception, dancing their hearts out in the great atmosphere of the ballroom and took the Standard trophy.

Throughout the day the audience appreciated the performances greatly and supported the brilliant looking couples, producing extremely high quality dancing. Why not watch some of it right here, on Nick Kremichenski's YT channel !

The IDSF International Open Latin competition attracted couples from Italy, Russia, Moldova, Germany, France, Poland, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Africa, Denmark, Lithuania and England. We saw a very interesting final performed by such talented, top ranked couples. In the end the winner was Nikita Brovko and Anastasia Melnikova from Russia, runners up were their fellow competitors from Russia Vitaly Panteleev and Daria Glukhova, in third place a new team, representing Moldova, Gabriele Goffredo and Ana Matus.

Another World Champion partnership, Tassilo Lax & Sabine Lax from Germany took the first place in the Senior I Standard category.

First place in the IDSF PD Standard went to Domenico Soale and and Gioia Cerasoli from Italy, followed by Federico Di Toro and Anastasia Tarlykova from Russia.

IDSF President Mr. Carlos Freitag and IDSF Sports Director Mr. Marco Sietas arrived straight after the IDSF PD World Championship Latin, held in Luxembourg the day before, to watch the Crystal Palace Cup in London. Mr. Freitag thanked Olga and Nick for all their efforts in running this IDSF competition and for their hospitality.

All the officials and couples enjoyed this event and promised: “We will be back next year, for sure!”

Report : Heidi Goetz