Davide Corrodi/Maja Kucharczyk fully lived up to their role as favourites at the Swiss Latin Championships in Wallisellen. The defending champions from Tanzsportclub Zug (TSCZ) confidently prevailed in an atmospheric final and won their fourth gold medal in a row. Flavio Martins de Sà/Angelina Lesniak (TTZ) and Alessandro Faraco/Charleen Leimer (NHDC) won silver and bronze.
Corrodi held up four fingers at the award ceremony, symbolising their impressive run of four Latin championships in a row. Before that, they showed on the floor why they have now climbed to 50th place in the world rankings. In the preliminary round, semi-final and final, they were the most eye-catching and expressive couple, impressing the seven judges from the outset. They were also spurred on by an enthusiastic, loud atmosphere in the Doktorhaus.
This was primarily aimed at the three TTZ pairs who were on the floor in the six-team final.
Martins de Sà/Lesniak made the most of this support, taking silver by a wafer-thin margin ahead of the up-and-coming pairing of Faraco/Leimer from New Dance Horizon Club, who celebrated their podium debut.
The favourites also prevailed in the youth class. Henri Arpad Hoffmeister/Katerina Penatzer won in all five dances, while Arjan Steurer/Aroa Martin also clearly secured the place of honour next to them. Matvii Dovhal/Anstasiia Lidzar (DUZ) came third behind the two couples from Happy Dancers Baden.
15th title for Lodigiani/Patt
In the Senior II category, there seems to be no getting round Lucerne's Flavio Lodigiani/Patricia Patt. The TSCL couple took the gold medal for the 15th time - an evergreen. The DUZ pair Frank and Wibke Sudholt, who beat Beat Peter/Ruth Zürcher (TSCL), were also jumping for joy after winning silver.
Last year's podium was mirrored in the Senior I competition. Andreas Kiraly/Anya Koplik (DUZ/TSCZ) won the title and relegated Pierry-Yves Richoz/Audrey Etter from Geneva and the TTZ pair Felix Locher/Silvia Nater to the places of honour, although the race was very open for a long time.
UDC collects junior medals
In the junior categories, the young Unico Dance Club Zurich (UDC) once again won three sets of medals, confirming the good development work among the students that was already evident last year. Renat Breus/Gianna Giancola and Maxim Haberjoh/Varvara Trushkina won gold and silver in the student category, with Marc Soldatenkov/Sofia Novikova from Zug in between. The junior category fell to their older team-mates Mihail Novikov/Marharita Markovska. Two split pairs from UDC and TTZ - Arsen Fedorenko/Illirika Yermakova and Lev Reznik/Darya Seupke - came closest to the champions.
Glattal Cup as a framework
The Turniertanzsportklub Zürich under the leadership of Oliver Baumann and Iris Buser once again proved to be a prudent and competent host. This time, they organised the Latin championships as part of the Glattal Cup, the traditional TTZ autumn tournament, which once again attracted dancers from five nations. The DUZ duo Vova Kasilov/Yulia Dreier won the main standard category.
The standard and ten-dancers will then be in the spotlight on 22/23 November in Tenero, when they will choose their national champions in Ticino.
Text: Martin Zinser / Pictures: Reini Egli
