Athens Dance Festival 2018

3rd edition of Athens Dance Festival took place the last weekend of February in the capital of Greece .

The festival was very well organised by Zhivo Yankov and his team : top judges , top couples from all over Europe , lots of categories for all age groups , pro/am and solo competitions , individual dances competitions , training camp with top coaches from Russia ,England ,Italy , Poland etc . - the result was record amount of entries and great atmosphere .

Our Grand Team was presented by the junior couple Marin Martinov & Dilyana Dimitrova .

This was their first competition in the upper age group and first one only in the open program .

Marin & Dilyana competed in 5 categories and did very well in all of them winning 3 gold and 2 silver medals :

1st place in Junior Open Cha -Cha -Cha competition

1st place in Junior Open Samba competition

1st place in Junior Open Rumba competition

2nd place in Junior Open 3 dance competition

2nd place in Junior Open 5 dance .

They were even more happy at the price presentation as the trophies were awarded to them by no other but the European Professional Latin champion Mr. Sergey Sourkov !

Mr. Sourkov was part of the judging panel of the event together with other renown top specialists such as Jerry Abrate , Jason Roditis and Lisa Bellinger . Our team was also represented in that prestigious adjudicator's list by Nikolay Manolov .

The level of the competition was raised by having some couples that make top 24 Amateur Latin in all majors such as Blackpool ,UK and International . Their performances were delight to watch and were highly appreciated by the audience .

The day before the competition was scheduled for the 3rd Athens Training Camp where in friendly atmosphere the couples had the chance to learn from the top experts . There were lectures in ballroom ,latin and flamenco . Sergey Sourkov did Paso Doble , Lisa Bellinger was lecturing Samba and the surprise of all came by Jerry Abrate who did a lecture on Ballroom !!!

Athens is a cosmopolitan city with plenty of things to see , fantastic places to dine and entertain and great historical inheritance . We made a very good decision to stay one day extra after the competition so that we can explore and recharge . For only one day we managed to go downtown , see the Acropolis , Parko Thiseio , The Greek Parliament , ate at some fancy restaurants with unique concept and finish the day at the beach in Glifadha which is one of the most popular areas for dining and relaxation in the outskirts of the capital .

Athens Dance Festival , thanks to the efforts of Zhivo Yankov and his team , is turning to an event everyone should have in their calendar . We highly recommend it to everyone and are so looking forward to come back next year , knowing it's going to be even better !

Efcharisto polly , Athens !