Illawarra hip hop crew Sweet Feet claim silver at World Championships in US

Seven Illawarra hip hop dancers have competed with the world‘s best in the US with the “better than consistent” crew bringing home a medal. Watch the crew show off their moves.

Illawarra hip hop crew Sweet Feet has danced its way on to the podium at an international event in the US.

The crew, out of the North Wollongong Street Beatz studio, finished second in the adult division at the World Hip Hop Dance Championships this month.

The challenge featured more than 4000 dancers from more than 50 countries and was held over three days in Phoenix, Arizona.

Sweet Feet, who finished 12th at the event in 2019, are coached by Don Napalan who said it was an amazing achievement for the crew.

“I am always proud of these guys and how hard they worked,” Napalan said.

“They remained consistent on the Australian scene and it‘s still kind of surreal to have won and with them coming from Wollongong it’s pretty cool.

“I wouldn‘t say there were a lot of expectations going over there. The only expectation was to work hard every day.

“We were hoping to place in the top 10, we believed in the skill of the team, especially after finishing 12h in 2019 and we thought ‘yeah, we can crack the top 10’.”

Sweet Feet trained around the clock leading into the final.

The crew, comprising Hadley Davidson, Connor Gregory, Tristan Vasquez, Breana Tang, Hugo Parrish, Nathan Garrick and Noah Green, finished third in the preliminary and semi-final rounds – with Thai team Awesome and New Zealand’s I-Descendant finishing in the top two places on both occasions.

Napalan said the drive to move up the rankings led to a “hectic” preparation for the final showdown.

“In the preliminary and semi-final stages the crew were amazingly consistent,” he said.

“After we qualified for the finals I said we needed to be better than consistent. We trained for 10 hours leading into it.

“We changed a little bit (of the routine) and made a costume change as well so it was a hectic 24 hours leading into the final.

“We wanted to make a difference and do everything we could to move up the rankings.”

Illawarra crew Sweet Feet (left) collected a silver medal for their exploits at the 2022 World Hip Hop Dance Championships.

Sweet Feet produced a score of 7.61 in the final, edging I-Descendant with the Kiwis finishing on 7.59.

Awesome took out the top gong with a score of 7.67.

Napalan, who runs Sweet Beatz Hip Hop along with his wife Brooke, said the crew‘s achievement would inspire others at the studio.

“We have about 400 kids entering the doors and the whole studio is super proud and super happy to be a part of this,” Napalan explained.

“Some kids were late to school watching this on the live stream and even parents were taking a pause from work to watch.

“For now we will enjoy what we‘ve achieved and focus on inspiring everyone else and show we’re like everyone else.”