Story by Lars Thorn

"It's not your grandmother's dance anymore," said Esther Freeman, president of USA Dance. As a grandmother herself, Freeman would know and has observed changes in competitive dance firsthand during a lifetime in the sport. Now in the third year of her term at USA Dance -- Dance Sport's national governing body, which is competitive ballroom dancing -- Freeman said the biggest change is a recent surge in the sport's popularity.

A major contributor to this increase in popularity has been ABC's hit show "Dancing with the Stars." At first, Freeman was skeptical about the reality show, but she came around quickly.

"I've really enjoyed it and the popularity that it's brought to our sport," she said. "It's great to go to a post office and have someone ask you, 'What did you think of last night's show?' because people didn't exactly ask me about dance before that."

While the show has no formal affiliation with USA Dance -- a nonprofit organization that has 22,000 members and is run almost entirely by volunteers -- the parallels of the two are clear. "You see the same excitement and you have the same audience reaction," said Angela Prince, director of public relations for USA Dance. "We have the same glitz and glamour at our competitions that you see on TV."

Freeman also notes the overlap in participants. "Many of the pros on 'Dancing with the Stars' come back and judge our events and many actually came up through our ranks."

The biggest difference between the reality show and USA Dance competitions is the way in which performers are judged. "The judges that we have are not as mean as they are on TV," said Freeman. "In our dance competitions, you are rated on your performance but never berated for it."

Star Power. Several of the top stars from the show were all-stars in professional sports before taking a spin on the dance floor. Apolo Anton Ohno earned his fame as a five-time Olympic medalist in short-track speed-skating yet he is now more often recognized due to his success on "Dancing with the Stars."

Ohno, who won last year's series along with his professional dance partner, Julianne Hough, sees parallels between winning top honors on the show and topping the Olympic podium. "The media frenzy that I have experienced as a result of winning 'Dancing with the Stars' has been similar to what it was like after winning gold at the Olympics -- only this time I'm talking about dancing."

The ballroom dancing fever has caught on world-wide, eclipsing entertainment as it grows. A similar show's success in Italy, won by Olympic long jumper Fiona May, led to a new Italian Federation of Dancing Sports.

In 1997, the International Olympic Committee granted the International DanceSport Federation status as a recognized federation, and at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, DanceSport was on display as an unofficial exhibition.

"Any exposure and publicity that we can get helps put us on the path to become an official Olympic sport which is why our organization was started," said Freeman. "We are an affiliate sport, and we attend all of the Olympic meetings. We realize that it's a long road to the Olympics and in the meantime, our dancers have had a lot of fun dancing."

The fun of ballroom dancing is something that the show captures beautifully, but competing on "Dancing with the Stars" also requires an elite level of technical training. "Although this was just a TV show, the training and competitions were grueling," recounted Ohno. "This experience was really hard and included 12-hour days of just dancing."

Ohno also recalls the encouragement he received along his march to victory. "I was getting an average of 350 e-mails of support each night as a result of the show, and I am just amazed at the level of interest we received," he said.

Beyond the benefit of hosting a championship, USA Dance's Prince sees something else that the sport has to offer. "Dancing brings unity to our very diverse country. We refer to ourselves as the melting pot, with people from all over the world," she said. "Dancing is something that we share and it brings people from all walks of life together."

The popularity of "Dancing with the Stars" supports Prince's theory that dancing can serve as a unifying force, even if just to watch others dance on TV. One thing that all dance competitors can agree on is that the taste of victory is sweet. Just ask Ohno, who won on the day he turned 25 and exclaimed, "Winning on my birthday was just the icing on the cake."