2019 GrandSlam Taipei City

It was another day that belonged to Evaldas and Ieva. Just like in Bucharest almost three months ago they dominated on the floor and scored the highest points in each of the five dances: 38.96 in Tango, 39.17 in Waltz, 39.17 in Slow Foxtrot, 39.00 in Viennese Waltz, and 39.33 in Quickstep.

The runners-up, Francesco Galuppo - Debora Pacini (ITA) were scoring evenly between 38.83 and 38.42 and earned their place on the second highest step of the podium. The couple had some very loud supporters on site, which seemed to push them towards the end, as they had their highest scores in the last dance, the Quickstep. In the end, the margin to the winners was 2.45 points in scores.

All the finalists were fabulous and a big thank you goes to the spectators in Taipei Gymnasium as they showed equal support to all six finalist couples.

The final result:
1. Evaldas Sodeika - Ieva Zukauskaite, LTU
2. Francesco Galuppo - Debora Pacini, ITA
3. Evgeny Moshenin - Dana Spitsyna, RUS
4. Alexey Glukhov - Anastasia Glazunova, RUS
5. Vaidotas Lacitis - Veronika Golodneva, LTU
6. Evgeny Nikitin - Anastasia Miliutina, RUS

The renewed WDSF Adjudicators Commission got a new Chairperson appointed by the WDSF Presidium. 

Mr. Glenn Weiss (DEN), ordinary member of the Presidium, and an international, A-licenced WDSF and WDSF PD Adjudicator was appointed as the new Chair of the Adjudicators Commission. The appointment took place during the Presidium meeting in May after Mr. Cor van der Stroet (NED) had stepped down in his office. 

In his acceptance speech Mr. Weiss said: ”It is a great honour. I consider this one of the most important aspects of our Federation. Our Adjudicators must be respected, educated, and given the tools to do the job that all competitors deserve; a fair, knowledgeable and unbiased assessment of their dancing.” 

This will truly be a top quality final! All the twelve semifinalist couples were showing their best. Unfortunately there are only six places in the final and the rest will have to enjoy it from backstage.

These are the six couples who have proceeded to the final round:

Francesco Galuppo - Debora Pacini, ITA
Evaldas Sodeika - Ieva Zukauskaite, LTU
Alexey Glukhov - Anastasia Glazunova, RUS
Evgeny Moshenin - Dana Spitsyna, RUS
Evgeny Nikitin - Anastasia Miliutina, RUS
Vaidotas Lacitis - Veronika Golodneva, LTU

It was such a beautiful athmosphere created by the 24 quarterfinalist couples! In Waltz they were gliding around the floor, and in Slow Foxtrot their dancing in the rhythm of a beautiful and serene music made them look like they didn't even touch the floor!

The twelve couples in the semifinal are:

Tomas Fainsil - Violetta Posmetnaya, GER
Madis Abel - Aleksandra Galkina, EST
Francesco Galuppo - Debora Pacini, ITA
Evaldas Sodeika - Ieva Zukauskaite, LTU
Vadim Shurin - Anastasia Meshkova, LAT
Edgars Linis - Eliza Ancane, LAT
Dariusz Mycka - Madara Geiberga, POL
Alexey Glukhov - Anastasia Glazunova, RUS
Evgeny Moshenin - Dana Spitsyna, RUS
Evgeny Nikitin - Anastasia Miliutina, RUS
Anton Besedin - Ekaterina Strelkova, RUS
Vaidotas Lacitis - Veronika Golodneva, LTU


The semifinal is starting at 18:50 local time (12:50 CET), slightly ahead schedule.

We are about to go live at Flodance. The quarterfinal is scheduled to start at 16:39 local time (10:39 CET), which is in about half an hour, and Flodance will cover the final rounds from there on.

We have already uploaded a bunch of photos of the first round to the gallery. And just like yesterday, we will continue uploading photos and videos during the breaks.

Szombathely, Hungary hosted the 2019 WDSF World Championship Senior I Ten Dance on Saturday. 37 couples participated, and at the end of day Erik Heyden – Julia Luckow (GER) were crowned as the new World Champions. It is the second year for the couple at Senior I age group and they brightened the colour of their silver medals from last year to golden. The 2018 World Champions, Simon Sorin Dumitru - Constantinescu Florentina (ROU) ranked second and Yevgen Dmytrenko – Mery Lenz (ARG) improved their result of last year from fourth to third, and won the bronze medals. 

It was a good day for the Russian couples at the 2019 WRRC European Championship Rock’n’Roll Main Class Contact Style in Zagreb, Croatia on Saturday. Denis Efanov – Inna Lebedeva (RUS) won the European Championship title in front of their fellow Russians Pavel Khromykh – Daria Shishova and Dmitriy Maslov – Elizaveta Novak, who ranked second and third respectively. 

The 2019 WRRC European Championship Rock’n’Roll Juniors were dominated by the Ukrainian duo, Oleksiy Brova – Vladyslava Marchuk, who won the title, and Maksym Manzhos – Oleksandra Shamrai who ranked second. Noa Lilih – Polina Rykova (CRO) made the day for the home crowd and ranked third. 

Congratulations to the couples!!!

The first round of the GrandSlam Standard begins in a few minutes, but we have been busy all morning interviewing Edgar Marcos Borjas - Alina Nowak (POL) and Evgeny Nikitin - Anastasia Miliutina (RUS). This time we had a new, digital twist to these interviews and we can't wait to show you the result of it after some editing work!

We were also happy to find out that Vaidotas Lacitis - Veronika Golodneva (LTU) are participating the competition after all. Their names were missing on the preliminary, unofficial starting list, but they are here! Total of 60 couples have registered, representing 22 countries.

Flodance starts streaming from the quarterfinal at 16:39 (10:39 CET), semifinal is scheduled at 19:08 (13:08 CET) and final at 20:34 (14:34 CET).

Quadruple European Champions, reigning World Champions and now twelve-times GrandSlam winners. This outstanding record can belong to only one couple, Armen Tsaturyan - Svetlana Gudyno (RUS) who came to Taipei to collect what is theirs, and they did it in such a convincing manner.

The couple scored 39.08 in Samba, 39.00 in Cha-Cha, 38.92 in Rumba, 38.92 in Paso Doble, and 39.00 in Jive, making it total of 194.92 points.

The runners-up were just as fabulous as the winning couple, performing from their hearts for themselves and for the fans. Marius-Andrei Balan - Khrystyna Moshenska (GER) ranked second with a margin of 3.34 points in total scores. Andrey Gusev - Vera Bondareva (RUS) ranked third.

Andrea Silvestri - Martina Varadi (HUN) ranked fourth, Edgar Marcos Borjas - Alina Nowak (POL) ranked fifth, and the reigning Ten Dance World Champions and European Cup Latin winners, Konstantin Gorodilov - Dominika Bergmannova ranked sixth.

The final was a pure fireworks of the best Latin dancing in the world. As we will shortly start to move our focus on the GrandSlam Standard tomorrow, we know we will have just as a magnificent competition coming up.