Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Oh God, Please Don't Let It Be So!

There are a few sports out there which, unlike squash, have Olympic dreams that are absurd in the extreme. I remember reading not too long ago about 'beach tennis' trying to become an Olympic sport. If you've seen it, and if you know how phenomenally un-international this marketing-inspired sport is, you'd laugh along with me. 

But here's a new entry in the wannabe column: pole dancing.

And I'm not kidding. The International Pole Dancing Championships were just held in Tokyo, and acording to this article, "Hong Kong-based Ania Przeplasko, founder of the International Pole Dance Fitness Association, said efforts are underway to make pole dancing a "test" event for the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2016. Pole dancers had tried to get on the schedule for London in 2012, but were too late to make a serious bid." Did she just say 'serious'?!

Formally a skill reserved for strippers, pole dancing even has a men's division. 

Yet another sign of the end-times, I'm afraid....