RP’s Marquez, Adora claim gold in Asia Pacific dance

Veteran internationalists Bong Marquez and Belinda Adora did the country proud once more by winning the gold medal in the amateur Latin category of the well-attended Asia Pacific Dancesport Championships last Saturday at the Philsports Arena.

Hosted by the International Dancesport Federation and the Dance Sport Council of the Philippines, another Filipino dance couple–Rener Mercado, 14, and 12-year-old Judith Anne Melencio–also won the gold in the junior Latin event undserscoring the country’s dominance of the IDSF Latin discipline where it captured two of three gold medals at stake.

Filipino dance athletes also bagged a silver medal in the Latin discipline when John Erolle Melencio and Kystal Dame Tadeo, who are both 14 years old finished second on the youth Latin category. However, in the Standard discipline, the Philippines did not win first place although it finished among the top three.

The other gold medal winners were: Youth Latin - Yutaka Kubota and Miyuki Kubota (Japan) Grade A Standard-Kazuaki and Yumi Watanabe (Japan); Junior Standard-Boris Matveyev and Yetena Klychnikova (Kazakhstan), Youth Standard-Masayuli Ishihara and Megumi Saito (Japan).

President Macapagal-Arroyo graced the farewell dinner for all participants, licensed international adjudicators, sponsors and organizers of the international event held under the auspices of PSC chair Eric Buhain and DSCP president Becky Garcia, who was also elected vice president of the Asian Dance Sports Federation during the companion IDSF and Asian Federation congress Japan’s Keijo Ukai was elected president.

The biggest and most colorful dancefest in many years, the Asia Pacific tournament was sponsored by the PSC, Philippine Olympic Committee, PCSO, Philippine Air Lines, Gulf Air, Bodega City, Dance Exchange, Pagoda Phils., Carlines Transportation and ABC 5.