By Jill Fraser
Beyond the glitz and glamour and perfect poise that have come to symbolise the world of DanceSport are young athletes who have devoted years of blood, sweat and tears to perfecting their craft.
Margaret Lonsdale is the CEO of the Australian Dancing Society. Her sole purpose for the past two and a half decades has been to build Australia´s profile on DanceSport´s world stage.
It is Lonsdale´s drive that led to the prestigious World Ten Dance Championship (Tattersall´s Australian DanceSport Championship) becoming an annual event in Australia and her vision that has contributed to 60,000 athletes participating in DanceSport in Australia today.
But Lonsdale shrugs off any praise pointing instead to the athletes, who she says sacrifice their lives for their sport yet remain severely disadvantaged internationally due to a lack of government sponsorship.
(Australia is one of only a handful of countries that doesn´t offer sponsorship to their elite DanceSport athletes.) "It makes my heart bleed," declares Lonsdale. "Our dancers compete against professional athletes who don´t need to work.
Quote from Dancing with the Stars judge, Helen Richey
A former dancer herself, Margaret Lonsdale is completely dedicated to DanceSport. Her organisational skills are without peer. The Australian DanceSport Championships, conducted annually under her guidance, regularly attracts some of the world's best dancers as competitors, thereby playing an enormous part in bringing Australian DanceSport to the forefront of DanceSport, worldwide.
"We desperately need Federal Government sponsorship otherwise we´re going to lose our dancers."
Australia´s top Latin dance couple, the smoulderingly hot Michael Miziner and his stunningly beautiful partner, Anastasia Belykh are one of many elite couples who are forced to juggle the intense physical and emotional demands of their craft with full-time work in order to meet the high costs of their chosen pursuit.
(Expenses include four or five overseas competitions a year, daily dance lessons at $220 a pop and 20 to 25 $2000-plus dresses a year for Belykh.)
Miziner, who with partner Bec Cartwright won Series One on Dancing With Stars, admits it´s tough. "China, America and Europe all give extensive sponsorship and our top competitors in Germany are completely supported by government," he says.
But despite the inequality Ukraineborn Miziner says his passion for his sport is overwhelming and rarely does he consider the struggle.
DanceSport is on the cusp of being deemed an Olympic event. Lonsdale predicts that it will be included in the 2018 Games and that the sport´s Olympic inclusion will secure government funding with private sponsorship following once the medals come tangoing in.
In the mid-90s the International Olympic Committee (IOC) acknowledged that the degree of stamina required in the sport is akin to that of an Olympic sprinter. This led to the name change from ballroom dance to DanceSport.
"We´ve got a junior development program that´s second to none and if they could get sponsorship we would be breeding world champions hand over fist," says Lonsdale.
"My greatest wish is that the juniors coming up won´t have to confront the financial barriers that our top athletes like Michael and Anastasia are facing today."
