MILESTONES

WDSF Elections 2021

BY ALESSANDRO SCALORA

On July 25^th, 2021 the WDSF hosted the its AGM meeting live on YouTube. During this meeting the WDSF elections were held for the following positions:

WDSF President (Shawn Tay from Singapore)
WDSF Vice-President for Sport (Nenad Jeftic from Serbia)
WDSF Vice-President for Finance (Tony Tilenni from Austria)
WDSF Vice-President for Legal Affairs (Marc-Frédéric Schäfer from Switzerland)
WDSF Vice-President for Development (Antoni Czyzyk from Poland)
WDSF Vice-President for Communications (Jeffery van Meerkerk from Netherlands)
WDSF Vice-President for Marketing (Vasile Gilga from Romania)
WDSF Ordinary Members of the Presidium (Patricia Goh from Canada, Charles Ferreira from France, Boris Odikadze from Israel)
WDSF 1^ST Vice-President (Tony Tilenni from Australia)
Secretary of the WDSF Ethics Committee (George Tan from Malaysia)

In the presidential race there were two candidates. Shawn Tay from Singapore and Ashli Williamson from Denmark. Shawn Tay received 92 votes from a total of 142 votes winning by 64.79%. Both candidates gave very compelling arguments on topics such as the new Breaking partnership and DanceSport in the Olympics.

Shawn Tay was first elected president of the World DanceSport Federation back in 2018. On July 25, 2021 he was re-elected to hold this position for 4 more years. President Tay began his speech addressing the AGM and all the viewers following along. He continued “I have been an athlete coach, adjudicator, chairperson, and championship organizer myself. I have dedicated my life to promoting DanceSport for WDSF and personally involved in the development of competition judging and education system. I have been in charge of the academy since its formation and have personally overseen nearly all lectures and congresses since its founding days.” He then began to discuss the work he has done to progress the WDSF GrandSlams, “additionally I have improved the format of the WDSF GrandSlam series and secured sponsorship from many top athletes.” His full address can be found at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTMzOml86NA

Relaunch of the WDSF Ranking System

On September 1, 2021, the WDSF announced that effective immediately, the suspended world ranking system would be relaunched. Now that rankings are enabled again, athletes must be sure their memberships are active, in order to remain in the ranking list.

At the same time the WDSF announced the implementation of the ranking system for the following age categories and disciplines:

Youth Ten Dance
Junior II Standard
Junior II Latin
Junior II Ten Dance

These ranking systems will be implemented from September 1, 2021, and will have the same configuration as the ranking list for Youth STD and LAT age category and disciplines: ‘…the sum of the four best WDSF World Ranking Tournament results during the past 12 month…’.

First USA National Breaking Championship

The first-ever National Breaking Championship was held, July 10, in Orlando, Florida. The event, sponsored by Red Bull, was organized by Shaolin Productions Freestyle Session Cross1 and was live streamed by Stance. The event was held to pick two B-Boys and two B-Girls to represent the United States at the WDSF World Breaking Championship in October. In the boy’s division, Victor Montalvo won the final battle and will represent the USA. In the girl’s division, the final battle was won by Isis who is not a USA citizen and so the honor of being the top qualified B-Girl representing USA is the second place finisher, Logistx. See full report here.

WDSF Membership Renewal Reminder

As competitions resume, it is important to remember that if you wish to renew your WDSF membership, please check to ensure that your USA Dance membership is current. If you have any difficulties renewing your membership, please feel free to contact our membership director, Margot Garnick at membership-dir@usadance.org.

New Date and Time for WDSF World Breaking Championship

Update on @_breakingforgold 2021 World Championship – new date and location: 2021 WDSF World Breaking Championship December 4, 2021 at Theatre de Chatelet in Paris, France.

The 2021 WDSF World Breaking Championship will be held in the “1 vs 1” format for B-Girls and B-Boys. Each National Member Body is entitled to nominate two B-Girls and two B-Boys for the respective Championship. Any nominated B-Girl or B-Boys must be 16 years of age or older on or before December 31, 2021.

The 2021 WDSF World Breaking Championship will be part of the Qualifiers to the IWGA World Games, taking place in July 2022 in Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

See WDSF DanceSport for more information.

WDSF World Championships

Please be aware that at this time the travel restrictions abroad are very fluid and apt to change. Be sure to do your research before traveling.

Due to ongoing COVID-19 concerns, the Junior II Latin World Championship scheduled for Ostrava, Czech Republic was rescheduled to November 6 in Sibiu, Romania.

The Senior I 10-Dance Championship has been changed and is now scheduled for September 26 in Szombathely, Hungary (previously planned for Dresden, Germany).

The Senior II Latin Championship has been scheduled for October 17 in Rotterdam, Netherlands.

See https://3q21.americandanceronline.org/international for a list of all currently scheduled WDSF World Championships.