Jäähyväiset | Farewell

Only three months after the biggest success of their ten-year career together, the convincing victory at 2016 World Ten Dance in Vienna, AUT, Jaak Vainomaa and Taina Savikurki announced their decision to end the partnership and to pursue new goals independently. Below is their letter that was read out on Saturday!

The World DanceSport Federation wishes Taina Savikurki and Jaak Vainomaa the best of luck in their future endeavours and says thank you for the many great moments that they have given the sport.

 Dear Friends,

It is the dream of every dancer to become the Champion. However, the path to achieving this is often narrow, windy and filled with surprises and obstacles which challenges ones’ body and mind to the highest extremes.

We are utterly happy and pleased that during the 9 years that we have spent dancing, training and competing together we have succeeded in fulfilling this dream - 14-times Finnish Champions, European Champions in 2014 and in 2016 the ultimate goal - the title of World Champions.

Both of us have worked hard, made sacrifices and put a lot of effort into succeeding and now as we have accomplished our objective we have come to a decision to end our career and partnership as a dance couple to go our separate ways and chase our dreams individually.

We have great respect and gratitude towards each other as there is so much we have experienced and lived through together. We have learned a lot from each other as well as a fair bit about ourselves. Although our joint career has come to an end we will always support and help each other.

We would like to express our highest appreciation and gratitude to our parents for their unconditional support - thank you, our success could not have been possible without you!

Our appreciation and gratitude on the highest level to our fantastic team consisting of Sirpa Suutari-Jääsko, Jukka Haapalainen, Harri and Niina Antikainen and Antero Koponen who believed in us and gave us hope and confidence to push harder. Every day spent with you made us challenge further and become better in the field and on the floor!

Our gratitude to our main sponsor IDE House of Brands for the help and support and for being there with us in person on every single trip we made.

Our gratitude to Finnish DanceSport Federation for the support and cooperation, it has been our pleasure to represent Finland under the auspices of Suomen Tanssiurheiluliitto.

And last but certainly not least we would like to thank all our friends and friends of the sport who have believed in us, supported us and cheered for us! It has always been a pleasure to perform to you and your cheers and positivity have surely played a role in our story.

We are looking forward to the new challenges.

With cordial regards,

Jaak & Taina

Published on 27 February 2017