Bjoern Bitsch and Ashli Williamson, DEN
The current World Ten Dance Champions, Bjoern Bitsch and Ashli Williamson, DEN, faced another injury setback in Saturday's final of the IDSF European.
Remember Wetzlar! Bjoern Bitsch was one of the dancers that saw his performance cut short by a "slip and fall" on the parquet of the Rittal Arena. He dislocated his knee cap on the occasion!
In Moscow, as Bjoern was dancing the solo Jive, he also stopped cold in his tracks - this time it appeared to be the calf - and had to retire temporarily. Even though he was able to return for the group Jive a few minutes later, Bjoern was victim once more of an injury that kept him from going the full distance in the final of the European.
For whatever reason, his injury did not make headlines, it did not even get mentions, in any of the reports coming out of the Druzhba Sports Hall.
Could it be that in DanceSport - unlike in all other sports - an injury to an athlete is never made a topic? That it is a taboo?
Whether the cramp (or whatever else happened to Bjoern's calf) was of any significance to the final results or not should not be the issue. That a World Champion was unable to complete a dance, that medical personnel had to aid him off the floor ... All that is part of the nature of a sport that is as physically demanding as this one, particularly in the DanceSport "decathlon," and should be addressed with reasonable prominence in each and every report on a memorable European.
A good thing that the cameras of InterDance captured the moment of Team Denmark's misfortune!
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