A TEENAGER from Gwent has been named the street dancing world champion.

Luke Cadwallader, 17, took the top prize at the UDO World Street Dancing Championships in Glasgow.

The annual competition pits the best street dancers in the world against each other over a gruelling four days.

Luke, from Rassau in Ebbw Vale, came out on top in the Under 18s advanced category.

Speaking afterwards, he said it was a dream achievement.

“It has been something I’ve wanted to achieve since I started dancing,” he added. 

"It couldn’t have gone any better.”

Luke’s mum Clare, 34, described watching her son become a world champion as an “emotional moment”.

“This is his passion, it’s all he’s wanted to do for the last eight years,” she said.

“He’s obsessed with dancing. 

"He’s always getting in my way by dancing around the house. 

"It started when a dance school from Swansea, called Fahrenheit, came up to Ebbw Vale and put on a taster class. 

"He was hooked instantly, and becoming a world champion is something he’s dreamed about for a long time.

“I think shock was the main thing he felt when he finally won it. He was up against a lot of great dancers.”

Luke now dances with Swansea dance school Synergy, and balances rehearsing with working at his father’s landscape gardening company.
He is no stranger to success either, having won two British titles in 2015 and 2016.

But the young dancer said he could never have achieved so much without the support of his family and his dancing club.

“I trained hard on the lead up to the event but I wouldn’t have been able to achieve it without my team,” he said.

“The constant support from those guys was what got me to where I am now, so I have to give a fair amount of credit to the Synergy dance school, and to Synergy founder Leanne Murray too.

“Moving forward there are still a number of things I want to achieve in dancing, but as long as I’m still training and improving, that’s what matters most to me."