World Pole Sport Championships Preview with KT Coates

It has been crazy this year. We hopped that our three year plan to improve and increase was working but we never expected the success we have had. Its been crazy and non stop since the last competition. We started the work on the competition as soon as 2013 was over so we have really improved on last year. Which is good because the event has increased from 86 athletes to 157 this year. Tickets for the final have sold out for the first time and we still have two weeks to go!

You can expect many of the world top athletes and nearly all our world champions are back to defend their titles. We have doubled the number of athletes in the doubles and novice. Your stands have also doubled and for the first time we have stands from companies outside pole which shows you how mainstream pole is getting. We will also be showcasing a new pole on the market called Aurelian Sports Grip Pole so make sure you have a look at that. We are also putting on better staging and live stream as well as a better sound system and entertainment.

This year will see the first anti-doping drugs testing in line with the WADA code which has been a really interesting road to travel down. We really hope the athletes have taken our advice as we will have to ban athletes that fail.

Senior Women - 18-39

Senior Men - 18-39

Mixed Doubles

Masters 40+

Masters 50+

Junior - 15-17

Novice - 10-14

All the catogories have increased but the doubles has become a very popular category this year. Its so creative and interesting to watch we really are looking forward to seeing what the athletes come up with.

 

3.Remind us of last years winners...
See the full results of last years championship here:

http://www.polesports.org/world-championships/historic-results/

4.As well as all the amazing competitors you also have a panel judges. Tell us about your judges and how the competitors will be marked.

There are 8 judges and a head judge. They judge 4 sections, Technical bonus, Technical deduction, Compusories and Art and choreography. There are two judges persection to make it as fair as possible. Your judges have been highly trained in our system and are the best judges in the industry.

 

There are too many and I am scared to forget. Kate Whitley of course who is my right hand woman. She works increadabley hard and is the woman behind all of the documenation we have written amonst a million other things. Florenza, davide, Olga, cindy and Kat of our technical team do an outstanding job and compit a huge amount of time to getting out code of points and judging in shape. We ahve gini and sophie who have done a great job with marketing and helping me promote. We also have a lot of people who help out on the day like nia, sam and adrien....the list goes on. The federation and competition would not be anywhere without these people.

 

We hope that our competition raised standards in competing and professionalism in pole. Our main goal for this event is to roll out what will be the foundation of the code of points and our anti doping programme. We also have a huge amount of international media intertest as well as other leaders of sporting federations attending. We want to show then what competitive pole is all about.

 

It has split over the last 10 years. we have pole dance/art, sexy pole and pole sport. You can really start to see the differences between them now. I can only really speak on behalf of pole sports as that is the place where i am most involved, but it going in the direction of recognised sport and a lot faster than expected. In three years time we will be recognised as s sport and looking at inclusion in the world games. Beyond that the Olympics is calling...

I cant as there are too many....lol