| Article | : | GOC Mannheim 2002 (1)
On the spot report by Werner J. Braun
With the 16 th International event a new area in this one World biggest DanceSport competition has begun. Michel Mauge, General Manager of the Mannheim Congress Centre Rosengarten and Organiser of the GOC has set new points. With the "Steering Committee", initiated and set up by him, he found international assistance to realise his great plans. So the traditional "Get together Party" at the beginning of the event, took place not as in the past years, in one of Mannheim's big swimming centres, but right away at the "Chestnut Garden" of the adjoining Dorint Hotel. Here under old and big chestnut trees a wonderful open restaurant had been set up by the Dorint Hotel, which served the guests a delicious cold/warm summer buffet and all the drinks you could dream off. The weather was favourable and in a warm summer night all the judges und VIPs hat the possibility for talks between old friends and new acquaintances. It was related that the last guests found their way to their rooms not before 3 am.
Michel Mauge, the host personally welcomed the guests and spoke about the changes for this years competition. He also mentioned the handicaps, which had to be overcome because of the construction works in the Mannheim Rosengarten. But he proposed and promised that in future the GOC could be bigger and even more comfortable for the participating competitors. Michel Mauge especially named the Members of the Steering Committee: Donny Burns MBE, Karl Breuer WD DSC, Wilfried Scheible TBW, Harald Frahm, the newly elected 1st IDSF Vice President, Gerd Weisenberg DPV and as representative of the Mannheim City Administration, Dr. Sven Otto, Member of the City Council
Michel Mauge pointed out, that this year a record entry of 2200 couples from all over the World were made. As those couples will participate in several competitions, there will be about 3500 starts as a total during the competition week.
40 Nations from all Continents participate in this years GOC including the Chinese with 116 starts. The biggest national group with more than 1000 starts is Germany followed by Russia with 900 starts. They again will dominate the Juveniles, Juniors and Youth classes.
It is a pity that the couples of Poland do not participate in this year's event. But they have insurmountable difficulties and financial problems. Here the German and the Polish Associations should try to find an agreement of an easier border surmounting sports traffic.
Werner J. Braun |
