Zoraya judd biography for kids

TOKYO — Zoraya Judd says there is nothing she would rather do than pole dance. She’s one of the best in the world at it and someday, she says, there might even be a place for her talents in the Olympics.

Riding a wave of popularity that has transformed a striptease genre into a cleaned-up and clothed version for fitness clubs around the world, Judd and dozens of the world’s top pole dancers — male and female — gathered in Tokyo this week for the International Pole Dancing Championships, a premier event in the budding sport.

As always — the championships are in their third year — it was a colourful field.

Along with Judd, of Oren, Utah, who was named the Pole Athlete of the Year 2010 by the American Pole Fitness Association, the competitors Thursday included Ana Marie Garbo, the 2008 world champion, who got her start dancing in night clubs in Manila; Chris Measday, of Australia, a competitive trampolinist who found the pole after breaking his back in five places; and Loic L