Azerbaijani athletes shine at wheelchair dance cup
By Nazrin Gadimova
Azerbaijani athletes Vusala Kerimova and Tamerlan Gadirov successfully performed and took the first place at the IPC Wheelchair Dance Sport Continents Cup held in Moscow from Aug.31 to Sept. 1.
About 150 athletes from Austria, Belarus, Brazil, the United Kingdom, Turkey, Germany, Israel, Italy, Kazakhstan, China, Korea, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia, Taiwan, Ukraine and Spain participated in the event.
Wheelchair couple dances are for two wheelchair users or for one wheelchair user with a "standing" partner and include standard dances such as waltz, tango, Viennese waltz, slow foxtrot and quickstep and Latin American dances such as samba, cha-cha-cha, rumba, paso doble and jive. There are also formation dances for four, six or eight people.
The first such international competition was held in Sweden in 1977. Several regional and international competitions followed and the first world championship was held in Japan in 1998. Since 1998, wheelchair dance sport is governed by the International Paralympic Wheelchair Dance Sport Committee.