Dance Sport Debuts at Asian Games

With the debut of the 2010 Asian Games on Saturday will also come another debut: the introduction of dance sport as an Asian Games event.

The athletes will be competing for one of 10 gold medals that will be offered for the dance sport section of the competition, and the athletes are looking forward to being able to demonstrate their skills in various disciplines, including tango, fox-trot, and samba.

“We’re living in the athlete’s village and the feeling is so great,” said Lam Wai Yi, a competitor from Hong Kong who will be participating in the cha cha cha and jive. “Normally when we go out to competitions, few people will say we are athletes. They’ll say we’re dancers or something. Here, I feel so excited.”

Dance sport athletes as well as the spectators who enjoy watching it hope that its inclusion at this year’s Asian Games is another step on the way toward having the sport included as an official Olympic event in the future. The Olympics currently does not have room to add another event, as the Summer Games are capped at 28 events, but many proponents believe dance sport would quickly draw in fans.

“A lot of people associate sport with outdoor sports, something that you go out to do wearing shorts and sports shoes,” said Shawn Tay, general secretary of the International Dance Sport Federation. “But life has changed, lifestyles have changed and dance sport is something you can do while you dress up nice and, in a way, glamorous.”

A very important element of a successful dance sport performance is the partnerships between competitors.

“You need a lot of precision, a lot of accuracy and discipline,” said Tay. “The male and female is equal. A lot of people regard females as the weaker sex in sports but in dance sport the female has to move as much as the man does or as fast, you cannot be left behind.”

Another important element of dance sport is the costumes; they must be eye-catching, because many different competing pairs of dancers take the floor at the same time. Dance sport competitors also have to be flexible, since they will not know what song they will be dancing to until they take the floor and the music begins.

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