Statisticians are oddballs who are forever having arguments about what does and doesn't count in the various sports they're into.
Out of interest, how many of Lewis Hamilton's 100 pole position starts were not due to him setting the fastest lap in qualifying?
They were due to him "winning" the three part qualifying session, to be more precise he would have been fastest in Q3. The session that sets the top 10 grid spots for the grand prix.
I honestly cannot even begin to fathom how there's any kind of debate. One cannot simply randomly redefine what pole is. By whatever method was chosen, the "pole winner" is the person who qualifies to start first for the main event.
In other words, part of the function of the sprint race is to decide pole position.