Ballroom Dancing

Less "violent" in nature but requiring no less energy and skill is ballroom dancing, which (along with surfing) has recently been given provisional recognition by the Olympic committee.

Sophomore Jennifer Fung and her younger brother Victor are the current U.S. amateur champions in the sport.

Fung is currently on the Harvard Ballroom Dancing team and helped the team win the national intercollegiate championship.

Ballroom dancing is scored much like figure skating, according to Fung. The competition begins with all of the couples on the floor. Judges then begin an elimination process until the field is narrowed to the top 12 couples. The couples are then ranked one to six.

Judges rate the athletes on their execution of basic steps and techniques, artistic ability, footwork, interpretation and timing. But the Olympic committee has yet to decide whether ballroom dancing will be a winter or summer sport, according to Fung.

"I really find that I enjoy it because of the fact that it's a way of communicating with someone else," Fung says. "It's a different medium.

"It's just a togetherness, a oneness, a connection," Fung adds.

For Fung, dancing is a family activity. She first got started in the sport when her mother began taking lessons 10 years ago. At Harvard, Fung dances with another younger brother, freshman Alex Fung.

Amazing Moves

Like ballroom dancing, fencing is a sport that invokes romantic images of brilliant swordplay and dashing heroes like those famed in the Three Musketeers and Zorro.

If Harvard were to knight an official Musketeer, it might well be senior Kwaame Van Leeuwen, the 1993 NCAA champion and four-time All-American.

"I envy them for their amazing moves. It's too bad that they're illegal," Van Leeuwen says of the technique of the famed swashbucklers.

Van Leeuwen competed for the Dutch national team on the Junior World Cup circuit when he was in high school, but hopes for the U.S. in 1996.

In order to garner a spot on the Olympic squad, Van Leeuwen needs to perform well in five domestic trails and certain events on the world cup circuit over the next year.