DanceSport At The Arnold Sports Festival

DanceSport At The Arnold Sports Festival

DanceSport At The Arnold Sports Festival

Feb 28, 2017 by Christian Pyles
DanceSport At The Arnold Sports Festival
By Storms Reback

When you think of the Arnold Sports Festival, images of body builders and weight lifters immediately come to mind, but the Arnold actually includes a myriad of sports. There are more than 70 different sports represented over the festival's four-day span. One of them is DanceSport, but unlike many DanceSport competitions, which feature 20- and 30-somethings, the Arnold focuses its attention on the young and the old. 

From March 1 to March 4, some of the nation's best youth through collegiate ballroom dancers--some as young as four years old--will be competing in the Arnold DanceSport Classic at the Hyatt Regency Ballroom in Columbus, Ohio. Hosted by Sam Sodano, the organizer of the Ohio Star Ball Championships and producer of PBS's America's Ballroom Challenge, the event will see more than 1,200 competitors battle it out for first-, second-, and third-place ribbons as well as scholarship prizes.

The competition will include performances in four different categories of dance--American Smooth, American Rhythm, International Standard, and International Latin--and dancers from a variety of skill levels, from newcomers all the way up to advanced dancers in the open division. 

Running concurrently with the Arnold DanceSport Classic, the 8th Annual Arnold 50+ DanceSport Challenge, will feature dancers who are 50 years old and older competing in all levels and styles. In order to qualify as a Senior Olympics event, the competition will offer multi-dance heats in Smooth and Rhythm. It will be held at the Sheraton Columbus at Capitol Square in downtown Columbus on March 4. 

Dance aficionados who plan on attending the Arnold this weekend can rejoice, as the celebrated sports festival features more than one kind of lifting.