Quick links
Useful resources
Sign up to our newsletter
Be the first to hear about news, special offers and more...
Posted on October 17, 2011
The 59th International Championships culminated last night in the grand finals of the Amateur and Professional Ballroom and Latin events at London’s Royal Albert Hall.
It was a good night for England: Michael Malitowski and Joanna Leunis, dancing for England, took the Professional Latin Championship for the seventh time, while Neil Jones and Ekaterina Sokolova, also dancing for England, were Amateur Latin champions. In the ballroom categories, Arunas Bizokas and Katusha Demidova, dancing for the US, held onto the Professional Ballroom title for the third consecutive year, while Emanuel Valeri and Tania Kehlet, from Denmark, won the Amateur Ballroom Championship for the first time.
Described by one of the spectators as “the best night of the year”, the finals at the RAH are a glitzy, glamorous affair with anyone’s who’s anyone in the world of ballroom and Latin there. Dance Today spotted Anton Du Beke and Erin Boag, Artem Chigvintsev and Kara Tointon, Darren Bennett, Katya Virshilas and Aliona Vilani in the audience to say nothing of the many former world champions involved in adjudicating and running the event.
Full reports of the night will appear in the December issue of Dance Today.
Photograph: The grand finals of the International Championships 2011 © Ron Self