The All England Latin Championships
By Elaine Davis 12/05/07

Sunday 29th April 2007 saw the first of the major comps to be held in the very busy month in the run up to Blackpool. Promoted by Michael Stalianos and Lorna Lee and held at the Civic Centre at Grays in Essex this competition always draws a good international entry and this year was no exception.

This competition is held in conjunction with the Supremacy Awards, a closed medallist event, run by Nicky Miles, which is held during the morning and afternoon and many of the young participants and their parents stayed on for the evening session to watch and support the Amateur and Professional dancers who took part in the two Championship events run in the evening.

We arrived to find a long queue and a swarm of happy looking children milling around the car park clutching armfuls of trophies! Unfortunately I did not get to see the closed events but by all accounts these were very much enjoyed by those who took part and I believe some excellent dancing was on display.

The Amateur Latin was the first programmed event and watching the couples warm up it was apparent that we were going to be seeing some absolutely top class dancing. Six heats took to the floor for the first round and this was excluding the semi finalists and finalists from the previous year who had received a “bye” directly into the second round. I was a bit surprised that there were so few British entries with only approximately 10 or 11 British couples taking part, although this was I believe a higher number than last year. The second round with the inclusion of the top couples from the previous year saw the competition really hotting up and it was great to hear a lot of vocal support from the audience for the British couples that had made this round. Unfortunately only 24 couples could be recalled from that round to the quarter final where the very experienced panel of adjudicators must have had quite a headache trying to sort out the 12 couples for the semi final. Sadly at this quarter final stage two more British couples exited the competition leaving only Evgeny Smagin and Elena programmed as representing England, as our only representatives in the competition. The semi final was comprised of what was, without a doubt a really world class field who treated us all to a display of absolutely fantastic dancing.

And so to the final where each couple was called to dance a few bars solo, before the commencement of the final proper. Six couples were recalled to this superb final and were cheered on by the large audience who showed their appreciation of the wonderful dancing they were watching. This is one of the very few competitions where visual marking is used and at the end of the final the couples were asked to take to the floor whilst the judges on the stage displayed their marks. Egged on by the compere Mick Stalianos the audience were encouraged to let the judges know whether they agreed with them or not!! Judging by the amount of booing and hissing heard it was apparent that the audience were not always in agreement!!!! It was however all very good natured with the booing having been practiced beforehand for twice as long as the cheering!!

The final results were:

1 Maurizio Vescove & Mylinda Torokgyorgy -Hungary

2 Matej Krajcer & Iwona Golczak - Slovenia

3 Zoran Plohl & Tatsiana Labvinovch - Slovenia

4 Evgeny Smagin & Elena Arsentyeva - England

5 Jurij Batagelj & Jacoda Struelj - Slovenia

6 Martino Zanibellato & Michelle Abildtrup - Denmark

The Professional Championship saw fewer entries than its Amateur counterpart and I don’t believe that there were any couples from England entered. Again we were treated to a display of fabulous dancing from these couples.
The final results were:

1 Benedetto Capraro & Marta Faiola - Italy

2 Delyan Terzifv & Rorlana Deltcheva - USA

3 Plamen Danailov & Tina Gerova - USA

4 Gleb Savchenko & Helen Samadanova - Russia

5 Toni Tuominen & Soile Nasanen - Finland

6 Alessandro Camerotto & Nancy Berti

 

Mick and Lorna run excellent competitions at lovely venues and this one was no exception. We are very lucky to have comps such as this held in England where an excellent international turnout gives the opportunity to compete against many of the worlds very best dancers and I hope that Mick and Lorna continue to run this great competition for many years to come.

Their next event at this venue is I believe the United Kingdom Open Ten Dance Championships to be held on Sunday 4th November 2007. See you there!