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China Tour March 2009

Hong Kong Competition and Demonstrations

This was the second leg or our trip, and once again, Bill Lau and his team had everything organised perfectly.

We arrived in time to get ready for the welcome dinner at the Harbour Plaza Hotel. We were wined and dined like royalty and had plenty of opportunity to mingle with an international field of adjudicators, competitors and special guests.

Photo: - all the way to Hong Kong and we get landed with this bloke from Australia . It was great to see the always smooth Mr Paul Green from Sydney bolster the Australian contingency.

The competition took a similar format as in Beijing, except this time there was a very international Adult Open and Professional field, which included several Blackpool finalists. Great to see a number of Australian competitors making the trip to Hong Kong.

We had three days of competition and each day we were treated to some spectacular floorshows. Fasten your seatbelt, this is one impressive list

Paolo Bosco & Siliva Pitton - Italy
Riccardo Cocchi & Yulia Zagorouitchenko - USA
Arunas Bizokas & Katusha Demidova - USA
Mirko Gozzoli & Alessia Betti - Italy
Stefano Di Filippo & Anna Melnikova - Italy
Peter & Kristina Stokkebroe - Denmark
Jonathan Wilkins & Hazel Newbury - England
Victor Fung & Anna Mikhed - USA
Benedetto Ferruggia & Claudia Köhler - Germany
Michael Maletowski & Joanna Leunis - Poland

Wheelchair Dance Sport
Kim Yong Woo & Kim Ji Yong - Korea
Ihar Kisialiou & Hanna Charchakova - Belorussia
Maxim Sedakov & Svetlana Kukushkina - Russia,

     Yulia Zagorouitchenko

This was just awesome, and Stefano & Anna's Jive one of the most entertaining floorshows I have seen, very clever.

Many of the couples had a busy schedule, not only performing great floorshows, but also competing at the event.

I had the best seat in the house. One of the adjudicators was unable to attend, so I found myself between Sirpa Suutari and Madeleine - YES! 

Sirpa brought along a rather bright fashion accessory that seemed to provide endless fun.

You can see all the photos in the Photo Gallery.

"Sir Michael Stylianos"

On another note, we had the birthday celebration of Alan Fletcher and the whole adjudicator panel went up on stage to sing Happy Birthday. Quite a spectacle. Let's just say not all of them are singers .

Some of the judges were tested on their computer skills, swapping the familiar pen & paper for a notebook & software. There are still a few teething problems with the system and maybe just a little resistance from some of the adjudicators, but one thing is for sure, it is only a matter of time before all events are judged using computers.

More photos...

Chris Gruber, Sirpa Suutari, Paul Green, Snieguole Wood, Alan Fletcher and Madeleine Zoanetti.

Kenny Welsh had the attire to proof he is not only an adjudicator, but The Judge!

Madeleine with Wheelchair Dance Sport competitors Ihar Kisialiou & Hanna Charchakova (front) form Belorussia and Maxim Sedakov & Svetlana Kukushkina from Russia.

Feme Fantastique!
Sirpa Suutari, Alessandra Bucciarelli and Madeleine Zoanetti added a touch of glamour to the competition.

While we had heard of electronic judging, this was the first we had seen of it. The adjudicators had an opportunity to test drive the system during one of the events.

Madeleine Zoanetti and Michael Stylianos "behind the wheel" of the e-judge system.

As you can see, we managed to squeeze every little bit of fun out of Sirpas fashion accessory. Mr Paul "Snoop-Dog" Green!

And of course, all the phots are in the Photo Gallery.

Chris Gruber