It was also a great night for USA as we took 2nd and 3rd places.  Sergey Samchynskyy & Yulia Besarab were 2nd and Igor Colac & Roxane Milotti were 3rd and it was a close race.  Sergey & Yulia placed 6,5,7,6,6,2,2,2,2,2 (ballroom listed 1st) and Igor & Roxane 5,4,4,5,4,4,4,4,6,4,3.  We thought both couples danced really well and especially in the Latin, perhaps both could have been higher. In fact we were a little surprised that Nikolay & Eugeniya won al the Latin section.

4th were Richard Still & Morgan Hemphill from England.  A second English couple although a name well known in the USA, Jonas Kazlauskas & Kathleen Ilo were 5th (8,7,5,4,5,5,5,5,4,5,5).  6th went to David Kiar & Lauren Andlovec from Australia.  They were 2nd in all the Ballroom but did not make any of the Latin finals.

There will be full reports in Dance Beat on this event soon.

The other 3 professional events were run as supporting events.  The Smooth was a semifinal round and was won by Radek Wiatrowski & Denise Sobiewski.  It was quite close as they scored 1,1,2,3.  2nd went to Maksym Lototsky & Sarah Haworth and they were 2,3,1,1.  With 3,2,3,2, Shandor Shtefil & Aleksandra Barsukov were 3rd.  4th in all were Proper/Elliott, 5th in all Lange/Urosevic and 6th Klotzsche/Lee.

In the Pro Ballroom Haritonov/Haritonova were the winners 1,1,2,2,2. Skriptsov/Skriptsova were 2nd although they won 3 dances 2,4,1,1,1.  3rd in all were Shelkovy/Shelkovy.  4th with 4,2,4,4,4 were Ishihara/Yokoyama.  5th in all Pavlovic/Barhatova.  Summers/Summers were 6th and Mader/Mader were 7th.

Azarov/Makarenko received a standing ovation for their routine in the Cabaret and they were the winners.  2nd went to Sepulveda/Martinez and they also received a standing ovation.  3rd were Falcon/Falcon, 4th DoLorenzo/DiLorenzo and 5th Sese/Lozada.

This ended the 2105 Grand Nationals, and with the addition of this World Championship it was certainly “Grand” indeed!

Is it a “Perfect 10?”

Yesterday we began the WDC World 10-Dance Championship here at Grand Nationals.  On this first night the first round (quarter-final) of all 10 dances were held with the semifinals and finals taking place tonight.  USA is well-represented and our chances look good.  The defending champions from Germany retired this year, so the world title is wide open.  Check back tomorrow for the results.

The other featured events were the Professional Latin and Professional Rhythm.  The Rhythm was the larger of the 2, beginning with a semifinal.  Nazar Norov & Irina Kudryashova won all dances and did not lose a single 1st place mark.  It was a tighter race for 2nd but in the end Andrei Abrashin & Maria Gavrylova took it by 3 dances to 2 – 2,3,2,2,3.  3rd went to Shandor Shtefil & Aleksandra Barsukov 3,2,3,3,2.  Maksym Lototsky & Sarah Haworth were 4th in all dances, Tamas Kardos & Mariya-Khristina Shurupova were 5th in all and Jonathan Chen & Melissa Keller were 6th.

The Latin was a straight final but was a strong event.  The winners – again by 3 dances to 2, were Dmitry Nikishkin & Olena Shvets-Nikishkin 1,2,2,1,1.  The other half of this duel was Roman Italyankin & Aleksandra Bokova 2,1,1,2,2.  Obviously this was a close fight between these two as it often is in other events around the country.  3rd were Aleksey Alekseev & Ekaterina Derevleva 3,4,3,3,3.  We were impressed with 4th placed Stefan Ilies & Anna Tabolina 4,3,4,4,4.  5th in all dances were Kristian Sese & Mae Lozado and 6th were Victor Caneo & Valentina Delano.

At night the pro-ams danced their open championships in Ballroom and Rhythm.  It was a good night for Lisa Lowery w/ Radek Wiatrowski who won the C division in both styles.  Miwa Rifu w/ Peter Minkov won the B Ballroom and Elaine Richardson w/ Linas Korieva won the Snr.  Janet Brutel w/ Michael Neil won the Snr. Rhythm and  Anna Trull w/ John Abrams won the B Rhythm.

Putting on the Ritz

Last night was the beginning of the Grand National Championships at the beautiful Ritz Carlton in Key Biscayne. 

The main feature of the evening was the Grand Nationals 10 Dance Championship. This 10-dance championship was excellent with very talented couples trying to be the best in ten dances. The winners were Simeon & Kora Stoynov and they placed 1,1,2,2,2,2,2,1,1,1, runners up were Jonas Kazlauska & Kathleen Ilo with the scores of 2,2,1,1,1,1,1,2,2,2.  So as you can see a very close competition. Third went to Ruslan & Ekaterina Wilder 3,3,3,3,3,4,4,4,4,4.

The afternoon was packed with Closed Rhythm dances and outside the ballroom it was all about the beautiful resort, beach and pool and we totally enjoyed ourselves in that department as well. Tomas Melnickski is a living testimony in that department and you can judge for yourself in the picture below