December 2012
It is the year that was included in the name of the VISION 2012 programme that WDSF had embarked on with the aim to bring DanceSport to the next level.
To make DanceSport "more global, more ageless, more accessible and more relevant," that is how this level was defined in the vision papers.
Passing 2012 in review, backwards from December to January, should allow you to make an assessment whether WDSF was able to attain some of its ambitious objectives already.
December
The unexpected - and at this point still unconfirmed - mention of DanceSport as one of the non-Olympic sports on the programme of the European Games caught many at WDSF by surprise.
inside the games, a reliable source of information regarding the Olympic Movement and sports in general, was first to headline: "Dancesport is set to be included on the programme when the European Games makes its debut at Baku in 2015." The news was taken up by agencies and appeared in articles around the world (Reuters).
The news actually broke just as WDSF had one of its main events in progress at the Luwan Stadium in Shanghai, CHN: the WDSF GrandSlam Finals 2012. The world's best couples all gathered for the climax of an extremely successful GrandSlam Series 2012 that saw the highest ever total number of entries for both Latin and Standard.
One week prior to the Finals, the 2012 World Standard in Melbourne, AUS, featured not only DanceSport at its very best, the TV production crew was also on a quest for excellence as they filmed the dancers in theirs. Here is the final again, this time in 720 HD!
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