Competition Structure

Official WDSF Competitions

For the disciplines Latin, Standard and Ten Dance alone, WDSF grants every year approximately 1,500 competitions to organisers around the world.

• WDSF World DanceSport Championships in Latin, Standard and Ten Dance for couples in age grades Junior, Youth, U-21, Adult and Senior
• WDSF World DanceSport Championships in Latin, Standard and Ten Dance for Senior couples
• WDSF World DanceSport Championships in Latin and Standard Formation for Adult teams
• WDSF World DanceSport Championships Showdance in Latin and Standard
• WDSF Grand Slam Series events in Latin and Standard for Adult couples
• WDSF Continental, Sub- and Intercontinental DanceSport Championships for most disciplines and age grades
• WDSF World and Continental Cups for Adult Latin, Standard and Ten Dance
• WDSF World Ranking Tournaments: World Opens, International Opens and Opens for most disciplines and age grades

Add to this the competition structures put in place by the WDSF National Member Bodies, with championships and tournaments in all disciplines at local, regional and national levels, and you arrive at an impressive number of opportunities for athletes in DanceSport to match up against their peers. Virtually on every given weekend, they could enter a competition near to where they live, or one where they stand to earn ranking points in an international contest.

Some of the longest-standing perennial championships are able to bring together up to 35,000 dancers competing in some 50 competitions for  the different disciplines and age grades over a period of one week.

For some years already, WDSF maintains World Ranking Lists for the Latin and Standard disciplines per age grade from Youth. It does this through its proprietary Registration and Licensing System, an online platform which not only monitors the results of all WDSF sanctioned competitions but administrates the licensed athletes' other relevant data as well.

The WDSF Associate Members sanction separate World and Continental Championships, World Cups, Opens and other tournaments in the disciplines and dance styles governed by their rules and regulations. Wheelchair DanceSport, Rock 'n' Roll and other competitions are regularly staged concurrently with those in Latin and Standard.

Published on 6 September 2010 (last update on 27 January 2024)