Get ready sports fans, pole dancers eye Olympics
ESPN CLICKY

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Hong Kong-based Ania Przeplasko, the founder of the International Pole Dancing Fitness Association, the sport's fledgling supervisory body, believes Olympic recognition is only a matter of time and would be a victory for underappreciated sports worldwide.

"There will be a day when the Olympics see pole dancing as a sport," she said. "The Olympic community needs to acknowledge the number of people doing pole fitness now. We're shooting for 2012."

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KT Coates, a leading pole dancer in Britain and director of Vertical Dance, is leading the effort to make pole dancing a "test" event in 2012 and foresees a more formal pitch in 2016, when the Olympics go to Rio de Jeneiro.

"After a great deal of feedback from the pole dance community, many of us have decided that it's about time pole fitness is recognized as a competitive sport, and what better way for recognition than to be part of the 2012 Olympics held in London," Coates wrote in a petition she is readying for the London organizers.

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But some pole dancers worry the sensual side of pole dancing, and its counterculture undertones, would be destroyed in an effort to clean it up for the Olympics. After all, would it really be the same without stilettos, a boozy audience and a red-tinted spotlight? And how do you score for sexiness?

Others fear old-school pole dancers would be eaten alive by gymnasts, who could easily make the conversion from other apparatuses, circus performers or Chinese acrobats, who have a long tradition of performing aerial tricks.

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nice to see that we have come so far as world community in general at large. I have a feeling that they will ban this sort of programming from entering County Jails to Federal Penitentiaries in the somewhat distant future.