19/04/2018
March 2-4, 2018 in Vantaa Energy Arena,the biggest dance event of the year - the Open Championship of Finland and the Grand Slam Cup in dance sport was organized successfully.
It was the 6th Finnish Open and the 4th Grand Slam Cup, organized by our club.
Preparation for the tournament of this level takes the whole year, completing a Finnish Open our we immediately begin preparations for the next one, and a few months before the event our team is working day and night to finish everything on time.
Within the tournament, international competitions took place in all age categories. We can proudly say that the strongest couples of the world took part in the tournament. The Finnish Open entered the TOP-5 of the most important World tournaments of the year and the leading dance couples consider it a rule to visit our tournament.
Finnish Open hosted around 1000 dancecouples from 39 countries of the World during the competition.
The tournament was evaluated by a panel of judges, that included leading experts from 17 countries of the World.
The competitions were held for 3 days, starting early in the morning with qualifying rounds and ending with finals late in the evening. On Saturday and Sunday the Evening Gala with the final rounds of the Grand Slam Cup were held. The evening Gala of the tournament has traditionally passed under the live music of the band of the unsurpassed Dave Benton.
We were pleased that the Finnish Open was visited by important guests, including the Mayor of the city of Vantaa Ritva Viljanen, Member of the Finnish Parliament and member of the International Olympic Committee Sari Essayah, President of the World DanceSport Federation Lucas Hinder.
And of course we were very pleased to welcome President Tarja Halonen and Professor Pentti Arajarvi who already were at our tournament last year and this year also decided to attend the tournament. President Halonen was very enthusiastic about the evening Gala and stayed to see the tournament until the very end, spending more than 3.5 hours instead of the planned 1.5 hours.
We were glad to receive many excellent reviews from the participants of the competition, among them were champions of Europe and the World. Participants noted the high level of the organization, many of whom said that for them the Finnish Open is the best tournament in the World. For us, this review is the best reward for the work done and makes us move further along the difficult path of organizing such events.
Thank you, Sincerely
Finnish Open DanceSport Championships
