We must have played on this once before. In any case, here it goes again! Dancing does get somewhat easier after a couple has a star (*) appearing behind its names. At least it gets to skip a round or two in major competitions. At the same time, this should be more than compensated for - in terms of the number of hours put in - since it does require a major effort to become a star couple in the first place.
The organisers have announced six star couples at this point for the Grand Slam in Antwerp, BEL, where round one is scheduled to get underway at 15:30 CET.
Andrey Zaytsev - Anna Kurzminskaya, RUS
Aniello Langella - Khrystyna Moshenska, ITA
Andrey Kiselev - Anastasia Selivanova, RUS
Gabriele Goffredo - Anna Matus, MDA
Andrey Gusev - Elizaveta Cherevichnava, RUS
Vladimir Karpov - Mariya Tzaptashvilli, RUS
Additional stars could get awarded after all entries have been confirmed and after the participating couples have picked up their starting numbers.
In any case, the list of six star couples reveals that the first Grand Slam leg will certainly be danced at the higehst level. Of the Latin finalists in Salou, the 2011 Grand Slam Final, only Martino Zanibellato - Michelle Abildtrup, DEN, and Timur Imametdinov - Ekaterina Nikolaeva, RUS, are missing. And we believe that they are getting ready for the next Latin leg in Copenhagen, DEN, on 18 February.