Next stop Belgrade for wheelchair dancers

Around 50 athletes from nine countries will gather in Belgrade, Serbia, from Saturday (6 June) for the 2015 IPC Wheelchair Dance Sport Serbian Open Championships.

Top athletes from Austria, Slovenia, Ukraine and Russia are amongst those competing at what will be the third sanctioned competition of the season in couples and freestyle events.

Austria have two medal hopes in both dances. World No.1 Sanja Vukasinovic is aiming for a win against Russian European champion Galina Ryzhkova in the conventional freestyle, whilst the 2014 top five pairing Brigitte Kroell and Werner Kaiser will head-out in the duo Latin and standard class 2 events.

Great Britain’s Paula Moulton will also add the conventional freestyle to her repertoire.

Slovenia’s Barbara Samperl and Klemen Pirman trail the Russian couple of Irina Gordeeva and Alexander Lyapin in the combi standard class 2 rankings by just eight points this year. Both will dance in Belgrade with the hope of making their mark as the season passes the half-way stage.

Russia’s combi freestyle class 2 European champions Svetlana Kukushina and Maksim Sedakov are also enjoying a slender lead at the top of the rankings, with the Serbian Open offering them the chance to increase their five point lead over Georgia’s Ketevan Zazanashvili and Temur Arabidze who will not compete.

Athletes will compete in duo standard and Latin class 2, combi Latin and standard class 1 and 2 and combi freestyle class 2, as well as conventional and freestyle singles events.

The 2015 IPC Wheelchair Dance Sport Serbian Open Championships run until Sunday (7 June).