Opening Address

Lukas Hinder, WDSF President

WDSF President Lukas Hinder addresses above all the athletes in his opening speech at the GrandSlam Helsinki.

I welcome all of you to the sixth edition of the Finnish Open. Even though we have had a number of top-level competitions in several other countries already, it is the privilege of this one to mark an important milestone: the start of another GrandSlam Series.

For the fourth year running, we entrust the local DanceSport community – the Finnish DanceSport Federation, the Club Masters and a team of professionals around Sergey Belayev – with organising two competitions that should embody the current state of the art in Standard and Latin dancing. These competitions tend to bring more depth in talent to the floor than the World Championships, they reward the participants with more World Ranking points than any other competition in our calendar, and they are rightfully considered to be the pinnacle of the first part of the year. A must-attend for all dancers who are aiming high!

That is why I was concerned when Sergey first reported that the number of entries in 2018 was lagging behind those of previous years. In fact, turnout for the 2018 GrandSlam Helsinki is lower than in 2017, but that could be due to the “Beast from the East,” adverse weather conditions in parts of Europe inducing some not to travel.

If other reasons should keep the dancers away, we would like to know them. Are there too many regular GrandSlam legs? Does their format need reviewing? Can the composition of the adjudicator’s panel be improved for specific legs? Would it make sense to have one and the same panel officiating at all GrandSlams? These are just some of the questions we have to ask ourselves to keep the competitions of this Series leading-edge, an incubator for novel concepts and continuous improvement in all areas.

The innovations which WDSF has introduced over the last decade – the absolute judging system, the spectacular and mediagenic formats for the finals, whatever – they were always applied to GrandSlam competitions first. For this to continue in the future too, we depend on feedback from all dancers. In this case, even from those who have chosen not to dance the inaugural leg of this year’s Series! By just staying away they may well want to make a statement, but one that is not necessarily understood by us – the WDSF – and by the organisers. Therefore, send us an e-mail – talk to us! We want to understand!

To everybody who works hard to make our GrandSlams happen in this distinct “Finnish Open” atmosphere I say thank you.

To the dancers who have made it to Helsinki I say thank you too. I wish all of them

Good Luck and good dancing!

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By WDSF Communications on 03 March 2018 16:26