Dear Members, Dear Colleagues,
With the end of the year rapidly approaching, I wanted to take this opportunity to congratulate you for your hard work and commitment to DanceSport during what has turned out to be another challenging period for us due to COVID-19.
The passion, determination and fortitude your organisations have shown during the pandemic have allowed our dancers to return to the dance floor after nearly two years of cancelled competitions. Over the last few months especially, the WDSF has been delighted to see so many championships taking place again around the world. Despite some last-minute cancellations due to the COVID situations in organizing countries, 80 percent of all scheduled WDSF championships were successfully completed. These included World Championships in Standard, Boogie Woogie, Rock and Roll, Formation Latin, PD World Standard and PD World Latin. On 4 December, we were treated to World Championships
in Latin and Breaking, World Junior II Ten Dance, European Championships Youth Ten Dance, and a PD World Cup Smooth.
One of our biggest concerns about the lack of events was that we might experience a decline in the number of dancers. While this is still an area we must monitor, we were pleased with the overall turnout to our events throughout the year. Nevertheless, the WDSF calls on all our NMBs to redouble our collective efforts to retain existing dancers and recruit new ones in 2022.
On the Olympic side, the WDSF Managing Committee has been in frequent contact with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to prepare for Breaking’s debut at the Olympic Games Paris 2024. Following the great success of our 2021 World Breaking Championship in the French capital in December, where b-boys and b-girls from 54 countries participated, we are now putting the final touches on the competition calendar for 2022.
We are pleased to announce that the qualification procedures for Paris 2024, including ranking events and ranking qualifying system, will be made public early in the new year, with qualifying events already set to take place next summer as approved by the IOC. We thank you in advance for helping us get this information to the Breaking communities in your countries and working directly with them on the road to Paris 2024.
The WDSF Presidium also continues to take measures to promote the inclusion of Breaking on the sports programmes for the 2028 Los Angeles and 2032 Brisbane Olympic Games.
Due to the ongoing pandemic and uncertainty regarding government regulations in different countries, the WDSF Academy will continue holding congresses for judges, coaches, officials and athletes online for the time being. We appreciate your understanding in this regard. Unforeseen changes in government regulations continue to be the biggest challenge facing our NMBs and event organisers, and unfortunately we expect this situation to continue in 2022. Such difficulties and the resulting increased workloads have also been a major source of strain on the WDSF Sports Commission. As a result, the Presidium is currently working on providing a weekend DanceSport hotline to help NMBs and event organisers to overcome any problems they face while running WDSF events. We will provide you with all the details once they are ready.
In addition, our new General Secretary Sergey Nifontov is at your disposal on all issues that concern you. Please do not hesitate to reach out to him.
In closing, I would once again like to thank all the organisers who hosted WDSF Championships and competitions in 2021 under such trying circumstances. Your work and contribution to DanceSport are greatly appreciated and we count on your continued enthusiasm and diligence heading into 2022.
I wish you all a festive holiday period and look forward to seeing you back on the dance floor in the new year.
Best wishes, WDSF President Shawn Tay.
