Due to Glenn's work schedule, and also this would be our third trip to Mallorca, we only fly to Mallorca to do the competition, then turn around and came right back. We left Honolulu on Tuesday afternoon, got into Mallorca Thursday afternoon, competed on Saturday from morning on, then left early Sunday morning to come home. We finally arrived home safely on Monday night, together with our suitcases :-)). It sure was a very long journey for us to do this in such a short time, but it was all worth it with the experience we had.
There were 144 couples from 23 different countries this year with majority of the them Germans, Italians. And then we have couples from Russia, Denmark, Finland, Portugal, Austria, France, Latvia, Netherlands, South Africa, Spain, Canada, Japan, Poland, Slovenia, Estonia, England, Ireland, Montenegro, Sweden, Slovakia, Switzerland. We were the only couple from the USA. This is the first time ever for us to be able to carry our flag during the parade of the countries just like in the Olympics. We felt really honored and very proud that we had this opportunity to represent our country!!!
We started with the first round of the World Championship on Saturday morning at 10:30 am. It was a blessing we didn't have to start the first round at 9 am like in the past, because it allowed me to sleep till 6 am before I had to get up and started to do my hair and make up :-). There were 13 mixed heats to start off with average of 11 couples in each one, and it took just over two hours for everyone to finish dancing the first round. Then they took the bottom half of all competitors who scored lower, back to do the "redance". I am very proud to report that in all four World Championship that we have participated, we have never been called back to do the "redance"!! After the redance, they eliminated 2/3 and took 24 couples back to join the rest of the couples to continue on for the second round.
Second round started at around 2:10 pm with 9 mixed heats. It took just little over 1 1/2 hours to finish the second round and third round started almost immediately after the second round. Half of the couples were eliminated, forty eight couples made it to that third round. We didn't make it to that round and ended up at 67th place. We stayed and watch some of our new friends dance the third round and we both agreed that the standard of dancing of these Germans and Italians are so much higher than in the US!! It's always a treat and a good learning experience to see how some of these wonderful senior dancers do their thing.
Wish we had more time there to enjoy the food and sangria's!! But we had to rush back to work. Attached are pictures from the parade of countries.
Forgot to mention on my report is that this year's World Champion is the same German couple who took the title three years in a row in the past, this is their straight 4th World SRII title, and they are Heinz-Josef Bickers & Aurelia Bickers.
BTW, just want to share the pictures below of Glenn eating his breakfast sandwich while we waited for our connection at the Barcelona airport to come home. That was the Sunday morning after we had to get up at 4 am in order to make it to the airport in Mallorca to fly out of the island.
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