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Back to China Tour 2009
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
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