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Pole Dancing As an Olympic Sport

Posted by samzenpus on from the gold-silver-and-dollar-medal dept.

If 29-year-old world pole dancing champion Mai Sato gets her wish, her sport will finally get the non-sweaty attention it deserves. Along with many other dancers, Sato would like to see pole dancing become an Olympic event. Ania Przeplasko, the founder of the International Pole Dancing Fitness Association, thinks it's only a matter of time before you'll be able to watch pole tricks from the comfort of your living room. She says, "There will be a day when the Olympics see pole dancing as a sport. The Olympic community needs to acknowledge the number of people doing pole fitness now. We're shooting for 2012."

28 comments

  1. BECAUSE by pudge · · Score: 1

    The Olympic community needs to acknowledge the number of people doing pole fitness now

    Yes, also the number of people doing Pilates, and Yoga, and Step Aerobics, and Wii, and ...

    I hope she doesn't seriously believe such a stupid thing. That would be sad.

    1. Re:BECAUSE by brainboyz · · Score: 1

      True, but have you seen the moves the girls perform at national-level competition? It's every much as strenuous and technical as other Olympic gymnastic events.

      That actually might get me to watch the Olympics for once.

    2. Re:BECAUSE by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      That may be true for such uninteresing events, but ROPE SKIPPING HAS TO BECOME OLYMPIC!

      Reason: http://bash.org/?146497

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    3. Re:BECAUSE by pudge · · Score: 1

      have you seen the moves the girls perform at national-level competition? It's every much as strenuous and technical as other Olympic gymnastic events.

      "As strenuous and technical as other Olympics gymnastic events" is orthogonal to whether it should be in the Olympics.

    4. Re:BECAUSE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I can just see it now "and the Wii Fit Olympic Gold goes to.... "

    5. Re:BECAUSE by zethreal · · Score: 1

      I can just see it now "and the Wii Fit Olympic Gold Winner is..."

    6. Re:BECAUSE by golden+age+villain · · Score: 1

      I am sorry I don't have any mod points left, +1 Funny.

    7. Re:BECAUSE by iamhassi · · Score: 1

      i know you think pole dancing is a joke, but they have team handball in the olympics and ping pong... oops sorry they call it "table tennis", guess because tennis is a real sport and the game you play as a drunk teenage in your parents basement isn't.

      --
      my karma will be here long after I'm gone
    8. Re:BECAUSE by pudge · · Score: 1

      It's hard to know how to respond to that muddle ... so, I won't.

    9. Re:BECAUSE by Syberz · · Score: 1

      Explain me this Mr Sarcastic, what makes the balance beam, pummel horse, etc worthy of being in the olympics but not the pole?

      Pole fitness is actually a very good exercise and not only limited to exotic dancers ya know.

      --
      ~Syberz
    10. Re:BECAUSE by pudge · · Score: 1

      Explain me this Mr Sarcastic, what makes the balance beam, pummel horse, etc worthy of being in the olympics but not the pole?

      Strawman.

      Pole fitness is actually a very good exercise and not only limited to exotic dancers ya know.

      Soisstripping.SoistheWii.Soisskydiving.Soareanynumberofthings.

    11. Re:BECAUSE by pudge · · Score: 1

      Explain me this Mr Sarcastic, what makes the balance beam, pummel horse, etc worthy of being in the olympics but not the pole?

      Strawman.

      Pole fitness is actually a very good exercise and not only limited to exotic dancers ya know.

      So is stripping. So is the Wii. So is skydiving. So are any number of things.

    12. Re:BECAUSE by Syberz · · Score: 1

      Explain me this Mr Sarcastic, what makes the balance beam, pummel horse, etc worthy of being in the olympics but not the pole?

      Strawman.

      A straw man argument means that I am ignoring key points of yours, which I am not because you did not bring any points. You were totally dismissing this activity for no reason (at least, if you had one you did not mention it) so I was attempting to make you cough it up by mentioning similar activities which already are in the Olympics.

      Pole fitness is actually a very good exercise and not only limited to exotic dancers ya know.

      Soisstripping.SoistheWii.Soisskydiving.Soareanynumberofthings.

      That is true, but the subject at hand is Pole dancing, not those activities.

      --
      ~Syberz
    13. Re:BECAUSE by pudge · · Score: 1

      A straw man argument means that I am ignoring key points of yours ...

      Incorrect. It means you are attributing to me an argument that is not mine, and then proceeding to attack it.

      That is true, but the subject at hand is Pole dancing, not those activities.

      Yes, and how sad that is.

    14. Re:BECAUSE by sjames · · Score: 1

      I've watched Olympic table tennis and I assure you that when THEY play it, it looks nothing like the Ping Pong in the basement I remember.

    15. Re:BECAUSE by jedidiah · · Score: 1

      You don't really have an argument. I think that's what the other guy's point was.

      There are plenty of things in the Olympics that are no more worthy of being there than pole dancing. Pole dancing just gets grief for some "unsavory" associations.

      Hell, they even have an event explicitly called 'dancing'. It's ice dancing.

      Well, at least ping pong doesn't require "judging".

      Is there anything behind your views besides 17th century puritanical pretense? I suspect not.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    16. Re:BECAUSE by pudge · · Score: 1

      You don't really have an argument.

      False. My point was pretty clear: the number of people doing something is mostly unrelated to whether it should or will be in the Olympics. There needs to be a minimum threshold around the world, but that is merely a precondition, and not a point in favor of the event.

      There are plenty of things in the Olympics that are no more worthy of being there than pole dancing.

      As I already mentioned, there are INNUMERABLE of things that are not in the Olympics. Why pole dancing, and not pilates, or step aerobics, or Wii? Each of these has far more people involved in them, and each requires as much skill and practice to master. My point is, again, clear, and obvious: her point (that lots of people do it) has no bearing on her argument (that it should be in the Olympics).

      In addition, however, it SHOULD NOT be in the Olympics, not simply because there's reasons it shouldn't be (which there are, and you mention two of the several: its bad image and its utter lack of objective scoring), but because there's NO reason it SHOULD be in the Olympics. None at all. "Lots of people," again, is a precondition, not a reason.

      Hell, they even have an event explicitly called 'dancing'. It's ice dancing.

      Yes, and ice dancing is a completely ridiculous event that has no business in the Olympics, and is only there because of the huge popularity of figure skating. And if the IOC could get rid of this embarrassment now, they probably would, but it would offend the figure skating crowd too much, and that's where they get much of their money.

      Is there anything behind your views besides 17th century puritanical pretense? I suspect not.

      What you suspect is irrelevant, since you have no basis for any suspicions: you obviously didn't read my comments, since you were arguing a similar straw man that the previous commenter did -- talking about "worthiness" -- and then you go further to invent for me a "puritanical" position I never came close to implying.

  2. Great Idea! by Logical+Zebra · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is a terrific idea. Finally, exotic dancers will be able to aspire to Olympic greatness.

    But this brings me to my question of how, exactly, this event would be judged. I submit that instead of being judged on a 5- or 10-point scale, the contestants should have dollar bills thrown at them. Whoever earns the most wins the gold.

    --
    I have a bad feeling about this...
    1. Re:Great Idea! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      I suggest an international hardness measure...

    2. Re:Great Idea! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Would there be a champagne room for 'bonus" points?

    3. Re:Great Idea! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Longest wood wins?

    4. Re:Great Idea! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Then you better not have any chink judges. Their wood will always be 4 inches or more shorter than the other judges.

    5. Re:Great Idea! by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      It's probably going to be judged like figure skating or most of the athletics events: Some judges will determine how "well" she did it.

      Probably some standard figures will be defined and depending on how well the dancers will perform those standard figures and the relative difficulty thereof will determine what "value" their dances will have...

      Hmm... dunno, but it would probably ruin it for me. Can't put my finger onto it, but it just wouldn't be a pole dance anymore. It's like all the "life" was squeezed out of it.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    6. Re:Great Idea! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Something like this, perhaps?
      Although I'm not sure if it's SI...

    7. Re:Great Idea! by dwarfsoft · · Score: 1

      At school we had Stiffs Scale of Hardness, obviously based on the original Moh's scale ;)

      Looks like we were too busy ogling to be able to think up a better name for the scale too

      --
      Cheers, Chris
  3. Don't give them this idea or comcarp may try ppv by Joe+The+Dragon · · Score: 1

    Don't give them this idea or comcarp may try ppv for the 2012 games.

    $300 / $350 HD* for the comcast 2012 games only on sports in demand.

    6 SD channels / 2 HD

  4. chess as an olympic sport by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I kid you not, there are people trying to get chess recognized as an olympic sport, and it gets funnier. For years one of the stumbling blocks was the drug test requirement for all Olympic participants (I guess the word "athlete" loses its meaning if chess is one of the sports). Chess players tend to be libertarian types who refuse to take drug tests even though there are no performance enhancing drugs for chess.