Yulia Zagoruychenko

Yulia Zagoruychenko (born September 11, 1981) is the current World Latin Dance Champion, with her partner, Riccardo Cocchi.
Originally from Russia, she began dancing at the early age of seven. As a child, she enjoyed watching and copying dancers on TV so her mother agreed to take her to dance classes where she did folk dancing for four years. She then moved into ballroom dancing. At the age of 11, Zagoruychenko started to teach kids to earn some money which she then gave to her parents. At age 12, she earned her first major title in Russia when she became the Russian Junior National Champion. For financial reasons, she could not afford to dance both Ballroom and Latin and so at the age of 16 she chose to pursue Latin. At the age of 21 she decided to move to America, and partnered with Maxim Kozhevnikov. Together they became the US National Professional Champions. In the fall of 2007, she began dancing with Riccardo Cocchi.
Zagoruychenko and Cocchi won their first World Latin Dance Championship in 2010, and earned their second title in 2011. They are ranked #1 in the world for Professional Latin. They recently won their 5th consecutive US National Professional Latin Champions title at the US Open Dance Competition.