World Latin Dance Champions Explained

This page lists the official World Champions  - Professional Latin of the World Dance Council (WDC). The championships are authorized and organized under the auspices of the WDC, and held annually in the last quarter of each year. The competition comprises five dances: rumba, samba, paso doble, cha-cha-cha and jive, as defined in ballroom dancing terms.

Official World Championships have been held in the Latin section of ballroom dancing since they were organised by the ICBD in 1959. The ICBD was renamed WD&DSC and has been renamed again to its present title. The WDC represents all the major professional DanceSport countries. Unofficial world championships were held, usually in Paris, by several organisers pre-World War II. Some of these events included one or two Latin dances in the same competition as ballroom dances. As these events had no official standing, they are not noticed here. There is one earlier international Latin dance championship; it started in 1953 at the Elsa Wells International Dance Championships in London (see International Latin American Dance Champions). Both series have continued annually.

World Champions

YearCoupleCountry
+ Professional Latin World Champions
1960Roger & Micheline RonnauxFrance[1]
1961Bill and Bobbie IrvineScotland
1962Walter Laird & Lorraine ReynoldsEngland
1963
1964
1965Walter & Marianne KaiserSwitzerland
1966Bill & Bobbie IrvineScotland
1967Rudolf & Mechthild TrautzGermany
1968Bill & Bobbie IrvineScotland
1969Rudolf & Mechthild TrautzGermany
1970
1971
1972Wolfgang & Evelyn Opitz
1973Hans-Peter & Ingeborg FischerAustria
1974
1975
1976Peter Maxwell & Lynn HarmanEngland
1977Alan & Hazel Fletcher
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982Espen & Kirsten SalbergNorway
1983
1984Donnie Burns & Gaynor FairweatherScotland/England
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997Hans-Reinhard Galke & Bianka SchreiberGermany
1998Donnie Burns & Gaynor FairweatherScotland/England
1999Bryan Watson & Carmen VinceljSouth Africa/Germany
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008Michał Malitowski & Joanna LeunisPoland
2009
2010Riccardo Cocchi & Yulia ZagoruychenkoUSA
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020Title not held — COVID pandemic
2021Troels Bager and Ina JeliazkovaUSA
2022Dorin Frecautanu and Marina SergeevaGreat Britain
2023Troels Bager and Ina JeliazkovaUSA

See also

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Dance Sports - World Latin Championship . 2009-10-20 . bot: unknown . https://web.archive.org/web/20110518170313/http://sports123.com/dan/wlat.html . May 18, 2011 .