Emily Colangelo certainly has the world at her feet

It has been a busy and emotional week for Emily Colangelo who clinched the Irish Dancing world title for a second time last weekend, in Belfast.
There has been huge celebrations since the Dungloe dancer returned home.
Emily said: “It has been a physical and emotional rollercoaster.”
On Holy Saturday, Emily and Laura McGee from Buncrana, led a calvade down Dungloe main street and people cheered and waved as they passed.
Laura, also a student of the McNelis Cunningham School of Dance, was enjoying celebrating having won second place in the 16-17 category at the world championships. The two girls posed with people for pictures, their winning smiles ever-present.
Becoming a world champion Irish dancer is not something that happens overnight - it takes hard work and focus and no one appreciates that more than Emily who started dancing at the tender age of three and a half years of age.
In 2019, at the age of 14, she won her first World Championship title in Greensborough North Carolina, USA. She won her first Ulster Championship in 2018 and with that the stars aligned, the All-Ireland championship followed, the Irish Nationals, the British Nationals and the All- Scotlands.
The onset of the pandemic in 2020 dictated Emily's training was conducted over zoom which presented challenges in itself. Emily used the time to work on perfecting steps to ensure she was stage ready when restrictions were eventually lifted.

During this time, Emily also started working with a PT instructor, Annemarie O’Donnell from Dungloe who focused on giving her additional strength and conditioning to further enhance her performance.
Emily adores dancing and was ready to take on the world again in Belfast at the 50th anniversary of the CLRG World Irish Dancing Championships, last week.
Sadly Emily’s nana passed away a number of days before the event took place but she was determined to take to the stage to defend her title. When Emily was announced as the world champion for the second time, she cried. Emily says she danced for her nana who adored watching her dance.

Emily was so proud to be able to take the title back to the community of Dungloe last Saturday where she was honoured by the people of the town and the McNelis Cunningham School of Dancing. Emily attends the Rosses Community School in Dungloe where one of her dancing teachers, Deirdre O’Reilly is also a member of the teaching staff.
The school has been a huge support to Emily in fulfilling her dancing schedule.