European Youth 10 Dance Championship –
Schladming, Austria

Ben and Becky Milan-Vega had the pleasure of being invited to represent England in the European Youth 10 Dance in Austria on 21st June 2008.

We left from Stansted early Friday morning and touched down in Salzburg airport at 09.25am. As we descended the steps off the plane the heat hit us it was 25-26 degrees and was a big surprise as all the football matches televised in Austria it had been pouring with rain. The country itself was absolutely stunning.



We were transferred by minicoach to our hotel which took about an hour, the couple from Azharbajan who were with us on the coach had lost their luggage and we really felt for them and wished them luck in getting their luggage returned before the competition next day.

We arrived at the hotel to find ourselves locked out! It seemed empty, but we waited until someone came along, it was Jane Vestøl, the Norwegian coach. She let us in and introduced us to the Norwegian couple, Jorgen and Hanne. We spent the whole day with them, we went up a 3000ft mountain on the cable cars and had lunch and dinner with them. We have now made friends for life with this couple, we are going to Norway and they are coming to England for holidays.




Saturday morning arrived and we woke early for breakfast. We got all the information from the organisers and found out a coach would be taking us to the competition. We had a few hours to prepare before we set off to the Dachstein Tauern Halle. The competition started with ballroom and then the Latin. It was an incredible experience dancing with all the other couples representing England.



We just missed (by a few marks) the recall to the 22, we were a little disappointed but nothing could take away the experience. The result for us was being invited to dance at an event like this. We had the Spanish, Italian and Norwegian couples say they really thought we were going to be a lot higher! It meant a lot to us as it was our first time being invited abroad. We then watched the whole competition and two fantastic demonstrations in the evening, the Latin being one of the world’s top couples, Zoran Plohl & Tatsiana Lahvinovich.

We didn’t get much sleep after the competition, we went out to a cocktail bar with Thomas and Sabrina, they were some of the helpers/organisers of the competition. We got back to our hotel room at around 3 o clock and our bus was arriving at 5.45!
We would like to thank Peter Nash, our Latin trainer and team coach who took the time to take us. We couldn’t have asked for a better captain. He was incredibly funny and the experience would not have been the same without him, we probably wouldn’t have met some of the people we did either!




Overall, it was the experience of a lifetime. We danced our hearts out and also made loads of friends from overseas. We would not have changed it for the world and hopefully look forward to be invited again next year some time.




Ben, Becky and Daena Milan-Vega