Four Malaysian dancers qualify

KOTA KINABALU: Four Malaysian Dancesport athletes danced their way to the gold at the first Kinabalu Open Dancesport Championship 2019 and will qualify for the upcoming Southeast Asian (SEA) Games 2019.

Edwin Teo and Kimberly Tan from Kuala Lumpur placed first in the Grade A Closed Standard Category whereas Tan Yee Chun and Tan Chee Min from Johor Bahru championed in the Grade A Latin Closed Category.

The championship was jointly organised by Nabalu Dancesport Circle and MY DanceSport academy at the Putera Grand Ballroom, here, Saturday.

It features a series of categories for ballroom dancing across all ages in dance genres such as the tango, waltz, samba, quickstep, and slow foxtrot, among others.

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The competition also brought in international competitors from Vietnam, Singapore, Hong Kong and Chinese Tapei and overall more than 100 dancers competed in the event.

There was also a closed Sabah category for juvenile and junior levels in the Latin, Cha Cha, Samba and Rumba genres.

The athletes’ performances were judged by a panel of local and international adjudicators from South Korea, Hong Kong, Taipei, Vietnam and Philippines whom are all certified.

Nabalu Dancesport Circle Chairperson Camelia stated that the championship was conducted with the Youth and Sports Ministry’s approval under the Sports Development Act 1997 and is sanctioned under the Malaysia DanceSport Federtion.

“I would also like to mention that the Ministry of Education has accepted Dancesport as a co-curriculum activity for the students,” she said.

The championship was organised in Kota Kinabalu in an effort to boost Sabah’s tourism as well as to expose local Sabahan Dancesport athletes to international standards of performance.

Chua Zjen Fong, a 15-time national ballroom dancing champion and Dancesport trainer, said that in his experience in the field many of the international competitors do not know the existence of Malaysia, let alone Sabah.

“Most of the competitors I’ve brought in said they’ve never visited Sabah and Sarawak before,” he said.

He added that the competition was brought to the local Sabahan Dancesport athletes so they will not have to venture out yet still be exposed to the World Dancesport scene.

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“Only a minority (of Sabah Dancesport athletes) will dare to travel out, most of them will say they’re scared or that they just want to compete in Sabah,”

“But we need them to know how big the world is. We need to bring them here and then show this is the benchmark,” he said.

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